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THE 



WRITINGS 



CASSIUS MARCELLUS CLAY 



SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES. 



WITH A PREFACE AND MEMOIR 



HORACE GREELEY. 



NEW YORK: 

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 
No. 82 CLIFF STREET. 

1848. 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1848, 

BY HARPER AND BROTHERS, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the UnitedStates for the 

Southern District of New-York. 



DEDICATION. 



Horace Greeley — 

I ENTRUST to you the writings of which it is proposed to make this work, 
both because you have displayed in your words and acts a living aspiration 
for the civilization and happiness of mankind, and because you have been 
fijpm the beginning my most trusting friend and ablest vindicator. 

If I have advanced nothing very new, I flatter myself that I have placed 
old truths in a striking light, and in a few words. Whilst I am not unam- 
bitious of fame, I believe that I am actuated in this by a desire to do good. 

In touching the serious subjects of Religion, Morals, and Government, 1 
have looked consequences full in the face. I come not to destroy, but to 
save. I believe that the Christian morality is the basis of all progress and 
civilization ; the embryo of all amelioi'ation of earth's ills ; expansive 
enough for all forms of governments and social relations, at the same time, 
the time-serving and gross corruptions of " The Church" call for unsparing 
scrutiny from all true lovers of vital religion and pure morals. The tone 
of many of these articles I would gladly soften, but then I should lose in 
truth and freshness what I should gain by more gentle phraseology. Those 
who have taken part in this struggle for the liberties of men, have volim- 
tarily chosen this position; it remains for impartial history to award the 
deserts of each. 

C. M. CLAY. 
N€w York, April 1, ISia 



VI KDITORSPREFACE. 

death-pangs, and endeavor to bury it out of sight and scent as speedily as 



It is now some years since public attention, especially that of philanthro- 
pists, was attracted to the spectacle of a young man, alone among five 
millions, raising his voice against the iniquities of human slavery on the soil 
where they are perpetrated. Known to not many, though bearing an honored 
name, there was something in his position and course which arrested and 
fixed regard. Enjoying wealth, and social distinction, and political con- 
sideration, he could not be suspected of sinister motives, since he inevitably 
sacrificed, for a season, if not for ever, the friendship of the loved, and the 
favor of the powerful, including the votingmasses, while he could only hope 
to secure in return the gratitude of an abject and servile caste, too ignorant 
even to learn who was daring and sacrificing in their behalf, while their few 
champions among the governing class were hardly more potent, were 
regarded with scarcely less contempt, and certainly more aversion. These 
were all residents of distant communities and states, so that, when Cassius M. 
Clay first spoke out in condemnation of slavery, not one audible voice was 
raised approvingly, in the entire slaveholding region, while thousands were 
loud in fiery condemnation. 

Yet it was difficult to discover plausible grounds whereon to assail him. 
He could not be charged with seeking wealth, for he had enough ; nor of 
seeking to profit by the spoliation of others, for he too was a slaveholder, 
and only ceased to be so by emancipation some time after. He had public 
honors, which he knew must be forfeited, and valued friendships, which he 
felt must be shaken by the course he had resolved on. Yet he took his 
stand on the side of Universal Freedom— at first defensively, against the 
aggressive efforts to repeal (he law of Kentucky which forbids the impor- 
tation of slaves from other states for sale in that one, and against the 
incipient maneuvers looking to the annexation of Texas to this country — 
but soon he was borne by the irresistible might of principles, and the current 
of events, out upon the broad sea of opposition to bondage, under all circum- 
stances, and everywhere, but especially in his own Kentucky. 

Hence he established and sustained at Lexington The True AivraRicAN — 
the first* paper which ever bearded the monster in his den, and dared him 

* The issue, for a brief season, of Lundy and Garrison's " Genius of Emancipation," at Balti- 
more, in 1829, is an apparent exception, but an exception in appearance only. Slavery was then 
too strong to manifest alarm, or even indignation, at such an ineffectual invasion of its dark realm, 
and not one slaveholder in a hundred knew that such a paper existed, until it had been quietly 
suppressed. If its establishment were intended as a challenge to slavedom, the defiance certainly 
did not reach the ears of the challenged; and uo one will contend that the power of the slave- 
holders over the Freedom of Speech and the Press, was at all shaken by this noble enterprise 
and its result. 



EDITORSPREFACE. Vll 

to a most unequal encounter. Its establishment was a public and widely 
resounding challenge to the slaveholding oligarchy, to come forward and 
defend their cause by argument, to surrender it as no longer justifiable, and 
see their cherished structure crumble and dissolve beneath their feet, or to 
crush their antagonist by mob violence and brutal force. They chose, most 
fittingly, the last alternative ; organized a mob through the instrumentality 
of a mass meeting, broke into the American office while the editor lay dan- 
gerously sick at his dwelling, took down his press, types, etc., packed them 
up, and sent them out of the State. This, it was supposed, put a quietus on 
the paper, and on anti-slavery discussion within the Slave States. 

They miscalculated, for C. M. Clay still lived. He recovered from his 
illness, and promptly made arrangements for resuming his regular issues. 
They were henceforth printed at Cincinnati, but published at Lexington 
(where the editor still resided), and continued for months to expose and 
combat the evils of slavery, without bating one jot of heart or hope, of 
plainness or pungency. The paper was finally discontinued, during and in 
consequence of the editor's long absence in Mexico. He had intended to 
issue it regularly till its successor was established, but in the absence of 
any tidings from him, his agent decided to stop it. But its place was 
speedily taken by "The Examiner," published at Louisville, Kentucky, 
and edited with great ability and tact by John C. Vaughan, a prized asso- 
ciate of Mr. Clay in conducting the " True American." Since then, " The 
National Era," another distinctively anti-slavery paper, edited with much 
power by Dr. G. Bailey, has been established at Washington City, whence 
it is largely and widely disseminated. And finally, the award by a Kentucky 
Court, of two thousand five hundred dollars damages to C. M. Clay, in an 
action brought by him against the leaders in the dismantling of his printing 
office, may be said to have settled the question of civil right and legal immu- 
nity, so that there is no longer a panoply for mob violence, either in the 
courts or in public opinion, and the Freedom of the Press stands fully vin- 
dicated and established. Of the struggle, which has resulted thus auspi- 
ciously, the hero is Cassius M. Clay. 

The volume herewith presented is mainly important as a virtual history 
of this struggle. After a single preliminary essay, setting forth the basis 
of the author's conviction, that man, and thought, and utterance, should be 
truly and thoroughly free, his speeches and the residue of his writings are 
given very nearly in chronological order, so as to mark the gradual awak- 
ening of an ingenuous mind to a profound conviction of the unmixed and 
intense evils of slaveholding, and the utter flimsiness of all excuses for per- 
petuating that evil. Of course, the opinions expressed at one stage are not 
always consistent with those avowed at another ; and no attempt has been 



PAGE 

Lawrence, Abbott, J-etter to W. C. Rives, 388 

Leader of the 12th of August, 1845, 284 

Letter of Invitation, New York, 182 

Letters to the Lexington Intelligencer on 

the Slave Trade, 115 

Letter to P. C, from Camargo, Mexico; 

New York Tribune 477 

Letter to the New Orleans Picayune 480 

Letter to the Christian Reflector, 483 

Liberty or Slavery f 256 

Liberty, Religious, 17 

Liberty, 30 

Liberty of Speech, and the Press, 36 

Lohere! Lo there ! 273 

Lowell Ofifering 368 

Lynch Law, 218 

Madness and Fanaticism, Slaveholding, . . 442 

Marshall, T. F., 287 

Mason Meeting 357 

Massachusetts Resolution, 451 

Metcalf, Thomas, Letter, 229 

Metcalf, Thomas, -• •• . 275-278 

Miracles 20 

Mistake, a, 368 

Mitchell, T. D., 372 

Mob, Judicial acquittal of, 336 

Moonlight, 283 

Murder, 355 

Nuisance abated, 399 

Needham, Edgar, 253-250 

Office, our Printing, 326 

Petition, Right of, 35 

Philosophy of Slavery. President Shan- 
non, 146 

Plain Talk, 271 

Powder 327 

Prayer and Slavery, 409 

Preacher, the Alabama. A Lay Sermon, 209 

Preface. Editor's, viii 

Press, Foster's Power, 258 

Prisons and Morals 333 

Property, that is, which the law makes 

property, 281 

Progress, 221 

Prospectus of True American 211 

Religion and Politics, 366 

Religion and Slavery, 353 



PAOJt 

Reply to Assassins, 290 

Republicanism, 28 

Resistance, non, 256 

Response, the, 365 

Revelation, 21 

Sabbath Convention, 396 

Sedition Law, 397 

Search, the Right of. Slave Trade, 259 

Shannon, President, Review of, 146 

Sin— Evil. The Devil, 23 

Sisraondi's Italian Republics 410 

Slavery, unconstitutionality of, by L. 

Spooner, 352 

Slavery, the evil— the remedy, 203 

Slavery, to all the opponents of, 226 

Slave-Trade, Letters on, 116 

Slaveholders, what do they gain 1 347 

Speech at the Tremont Temple, Boston,.. 160 

Speech, War, at Lexington, 475 

Speech in reply to T. F. Marshall. An- 
nexation, 87 

Speech in reply to R. M. Johnson. An- 
nexation, "HI 

Speech against Importation of Slaves. 

Law of 1833 58 

Speech on the Railroad Bank, 50 

Speech on the Convention, 45 

Speech at the Tabernacle, New York,... 285 

Speech of Col. W. H . Caperton, 490 

S|)eech at Richmond, Kentucky, 491 

Speed Letter, 157 

Spirit of the Press, 348 

Soul, Immortality of the, 34 

State of Nature, 25 

SulTrage, 31 

Surrender of Encarnacion, 480 

Sue, Eugene, 327 

Testament, the Old, 22 

Do. " New 22 

Time, the, has not come, 272 

Toleration 19,361 

Trial by Jury, 33 

Turning loose, 248 

United States an elective Monarchy, 464 

War Meeting at Lexington, 466 

Walsh, Robert, 452 

Wilson, Henry, Speech of, 450 



MEMOIR. 



Gpeen Clay,* was born in Powhattan County, Virginia, on the 14th of 
August, 1755. He was the son of Charles Clay, a descendant of John Clay, 
a British Grenadier, who came to Virginia during Bacon's Rebellion, and 
chose to settle there rather than return with the King's troops to England. 
He was understood to be of Welsh origin. The Clay family maintained a 
good standing in Virginia, and several brothers of Green were chosen to sta- 
tions of responsibility. Matthew, who was remarkable for his personal 
attractions, was long a member of Congress from Virginia. Thomas was 
one of the framers of the first Constitution of Kentucky, in 1792. Green 
Clay, having been punished for some trivial offence, by his father, in a 
way which wounded his pride, left the paternal home, a minor, and deter- 
mined to push his fortune in the West. He attended school but nine months 
in his life; yet during that time he learned to read, write, cypher, and 
acquired some notion of surveying. He was among the first white set- 
tlers of Kentucky. He found employment in the office of James Thompson, 
a licensed sur\'eyor, was soon made a deputy, and became one of the first 
practical surveyors in the West. By entering lands on the shares, he laid the 
foundation of a very large fortune. He was successively chosen to fill seve- 
ral important stations, civil and military. He was a representative of the 
Kentucky district in the Virginia Legislature, and was a member of the Vir- 
ginia Convention that ratified the present Federal Constitution, himself sup- 
porting and voting for the ratification. He was also a member of the Con- 
vention which, in 1799, framed the present Constitution of Kentucky, and 
subsequently represented Madison County at different times in either branch 
of the State Legislature. He bore an active and influential part in the poli- 
tics and legislation of his time, and was widely esteemed for his ability, 
integrity and patriotism. Clay county was named in his honor by the Ken- 
tucky Legislature. 

On the breaking out of the last war with Great Britain, Green Clay was 
among the large number of Kentuckians who rallied around their country's 
standard, and in May, 1813, he advanced at the head of 3,000 volunteers to 
the relief of Gen. Harrison, then besieged in Fort Meigs. Cutting his way, 
through the enemy's lines, the British and. Indians were forced to retire after 
this accession of strength. Gen. Harrison reposed the utmost confidence in 
General Clay, and left him in command of Fort Meigs. In the autumn of that 
year, the fort was again invested by 1,500 British troops, under Proctor, and 
5,000 Indians, led by Tecumseh, but they made no impression, and were 
soon obliged to raise the siege and decamp. For the gallantry and good con- 
duct of this defence. Gen. Harrison rendered, by special order, thanks to Gen. 
Clay. Gen. C, admonished by his advancing years and increasing cares, 
declined public life after the close of the war, and died on the 31st of October, 
1826, in the 72d year of his age. 

Cassius Marcellus Clay, the youngest of seven children of Green Clay 



See Collins's Kentucky, 1847, Art. Clay County. 



XU MEMOIR. 

(B. J. Clay being the only other son now living,) was born on the 9th of Oc- 
tober, 1810. His mother's maiden name was Sally Lewis, granddaughter of 
Edward Payne, of Virginia, who struck Gen. Washington for an insult, for 
which that great man promptly and magnanimously apologized, and Payne 
was ever after one of his most devoted admirers and friends. Mrs. Clay 
still lives, is an exemplary member of the Baptist Church, and is distinguish- 
ed for her industry, energy of will, and love of truth, with which she early 
and ardently imbued the minds of her children. 

The father, feeling keenly the deficiencies of his own education, freely 
lavished his ample means in procuring the best attainable instruction for hia 
children. Cassius was early committed to the charge of the late Joshua Fry, 
Esq., of Garrard Co., Ky., a wealthy gentleman, who taught a small number 
of pupils in his own house, more to indulge his love of teaching than with a 
view to pecuniary recompense, as he took but few pupils in addition to his 
own grandchildren, one of whom is the present Maj. Carey Fry, honorably 
distin'guished at Buena Vista. Thoroughness was the grand aim of this 
school. Hence young Clay passed to Transylvania University, at Lexing- 
ton, where he pursued the usual routine of study to the middle of the Senior 
year, when, in consequence of President Wood's leaving to take charge of 
the University of Alabama, he transferred himself to Yale College, where 
he entered the Junior Class, and graduated in 1832. While a Senior, he 
was unanimously chosen by his class to deliver an Address on the Centennial 
Anniversary of Washington's birth day, which he did. That Address is the 
earliest of his productions reprinted in this volume. 

Returning to Kentucky, Mr. Clay was married the ensuing spring to Mary 
Jane Warfield, of Lexington, Ky., daughter of E. Warfield, Esq., who emi- 
grated thither from Maryland. Miss W. was one of the most accomplished 
and most admired women of Kentucky. It is not within the province of this 
sketch to reveal the priceless treasures of- conjugal affection, but it can hardly 
be improper to state, what is already widely known, that through all the 
varied fortunes and imminent perils of his subsequent career, Mr. Clay has 
enjoyed the appreciation and sustaining sympathy of one who has approved 
and gloried in his every act — has discerned a straightforward rectitude and 
a self-forgetting philanthropy, where others proclaimed inconsistency, and 
empty craving for notoriety, — and who, whether he were arming for the 
defence of his own property and dearest rights at home, or to join the inva- 
ders of Mexico in a war he had early, uniformly and unsparingly stigmatized 
as unjust and abhorrent, has still recognised in him, through all, a generous, 
self-devoting champion of eternal justice and universal freedom. 

The public career of Mr. Clay has been so closely interwoven with and is 
so fully illustrated by the speeches, letters, &c., contained in the following 
pages, that little remains to be added. He was first chosen to the Legisla- 
ture of Kentucky, as soon as eligible, from his native county of Madison, in 
1835, (See his speech at the ensuing session,) but was defeated in a can- 
vass for re-election by the influence of a local question respecting Internal 
Improvement. The next year (1837) he was triumphantly returned. Re- 
moving soon after to Fayette county, he was in 1840 elected from that 
county. Meantime he was chosen a delegate from a district in which he did 
not reside to the Whig National convention which met at Harrisburg in. 
December 1839, and nominated Gen. Harrison for President. Mr. Clay ad- 
vocated and voted for Henry Clay throughout that excited struggle. He 
was for the last time a candidate for the Legislature in 1841, when, having 
rendered himself intensely obnoxious to the slave power by his course with 
regard to slavery, he was thrown out by illegal votes, by violence and fraud, 
a slave-trader being chosen in his stead. He has not since been a candidate 
for any public station. 



MEMOIR, 



While a member of the Legislature, Mr. Clay was an ardent supporter of 
a common school system, of internal improvements, and of an improved jury 
system, all of which measures were ultimately carried during his public 
service. 

Having early and earnestly exposed and denounced the project of annex- 
ing Texas to our Union, as a plot for the extension of slavery and the slave 
power in the United States, (see Speeches and Letters), Mr. Clay in 1844 
traversed the free states, urging and entreating the opponents of slavery to 
vote for the whig candidate for President, so as to defeat that flagitious 
measure. He was partially but not sufficiently heeded. Sixty thousand 
voters saw fit to give their suffrages to James G. Birney, thus permitting the 
election of Polk, and insuring the annexation of Texas, with the long cata- 
logue of consequent crimes and calamities. For none of this can Mr. Clay 
be held responsible. 

On .Tune 3d, 1845, he commenced at Lexington, Ky., the weekly issue of 
The True American, expressly devoted to a discussion of the character 
and influences of Human Slavery, as it exists in this country, and to the 
dissemination of truth and concentration of opinion with a view to its over- 
throw. As the publication of that paper marked an era in the history of the 
time, and as the concerted, systematic violence which destroyed its office and 
temporarily suspended its issues was justified by its authors by impeaching 
not the general bearing and aim but the manner and temper of its strictures. 
the editorials, without an exception of any consequence, and including all 
those which especially provoked or were made the pretext for the riot, are 
in this volume collected and presented in due order. The public will there- 
fore judge whether the personal criticism and the brief passages which, 
wrenched from their context, were made to threaten the upholders of 
slavery with the horrors of a servile insurrection, were in truth the causes 
of the outrage, or whether they were not rather seized upon as pretexts for 
crushing an adversary whom it was painful to hear, difficult to avoid hearing, 
and impossible otherwise to silence or to answer. 

It were easy to say that a prudent, discreet man, just commencing an 
anti-slavery journal in the midst of a slave-holding community, would have 
studiously avoided all severity of language, all personal inculpation, every 
form of expression calculated to excite angry feeling or provoke hostile de- 
monstrations. A model of prudence would doubtless have cut the matter 
short and avoided all danger by not attempting such a paper at all. No sen- 
sible person supposes that a wrong so inveterate and so inter\Voven with all 
its upholders' ideas of comfort and consequence as slavery, is to be pelted out 
of existence with rose-leaves, or that the wieldersof such weapons will ever 
achieve its overthrow by any means. When Mr. Clay became convinced 
that his duty to an oppressed and degraded race required of him not merely 
the emancipation of those held in bondage by himself, but a public and per- 
sistent endeavor to awaken in others the convictions which impelled his own 
course, it was hardly to be expected that those convictions would be uni- 
formly expressed in language inoffensive to the large class who had long ago 
determined not to be convinced, nor even patiently to listen. From the day 
that his Prospectus was published, the ultimate suppression of his paper by 
violence was generally anticipated, and if any one excuse had not been af- 
forded, another would almost certainly have been made to serve. Have 
we not just seen the office of the National Era at Washington — a paper 
uniformly temperate and courteous in language — assailed quite as formidably 
and determinedly as that of the True American, and only saved from de- 
struction because the Police of Washington was more powerful or more 
faithful than that of Lexington ? 



MEMOIR. 



The excitement which the bare annunciation of an anti-slavery journal 
in Kentucky had created, was steadily, daily increased, after its appearance 
by the bold, fearless, pungent character of its editorials. At length, after 
the appearance of the strictures on^ov. Metcalf's letter, a leading article by 
a Southerner and a slave-holder, and the swiftly succeeding article in which 
reference is made to " the smooth-skinned woman on the ottoman," as sit- 
ting there in peace and safety, ever under the protecting shield of law, which 
it would therefore be most unwise in the slaveholders to overbear or disre- 
gard, a secret caucus, and then a public meeting, were called in Lexington, 
largely attended and most vehemently addressed, at which it was formally 
resolved that the True American should be stopped — if not by intimidation, 
then by violence. A committee was appointed to see to the execution of this 
edict, first by corresponding or conferring with Mr. Clay, and, remonstrance 
failing, by a resort to overwhelming force, and bloodshed if necessary. Per- 
sonal hostility very naturally mingled with the more obvious impulse in this 
business. The chief orator of the lawless gathering was T. F. Marshall, a 
notoriously bitter adversary of Mr. Clay, and all whom he had offended 
during the ardent political contests wherein he had been engaged were 
ready enough to seize so fair and safe an opportunity for revenge. The ex- 
citement fanned itself into a fierce and fiercer fury ; those who did not share 
in it were awed into silence, and the spectacle presented was that of a whole 
community banded and ready to go all lengths for the immolation or destruc- 
tion of one solitary man. 

That man did not shrink from the encounter. To the formal demand that 
the True American should be stopped, he returned a peremptory and scorn- 
ful negative. At a day appointed, therefore, on the 18th of August, the 
mob re-assembled, with the active countenance and under the almost entire 
direction of men of high social standing and seeming consequence, and, com- 
pliance with their wishes being still refused, proceeded to the office, over- 
awed the civil power, the mayor of the city and posse, to whom Mr. Clay 
had surrendered the keys, by order of injunction from Judge Trotter, tore down 
the press, packed up tne type, &c., all of which was, in such order as may 
be best imagined, sent off to Cincinnati, and there landed, subject to the 
owner's order. To this procedure no active opposition was made. Mr. 
Clay lay severely ill in his dwelling, unable even to witness the outrage, 
and, as none beside would take the hazard of standing forth against an infuri- 
ated multitude, the press was silenced. 

Not finally, however. On the partial restoration of his health, Mr. Clay 
promptly made arrangements for the re-issue of his paper. It was thereafter 
printed at Cincinnati, but still dated at Lexington, where its editor continued 
to reside and conduct it, with no abatement in the vigor or plainness of his 
reprobation of Human Bondage. Thus the paper went on, increasing in 
patronage and in influence, up to the time (June 7th, 1846,) that Mr. Clay 
left it in temporary charge of his friend, John C. Vaughan, previously As- 
sistant Editor, to engage in the war in Mexico, for which, according to a 
long standing pledge, he had volunteered. 

Although a war with Mexico had been confidently predicted by Mr. Clay 
in his various public addresses, in 1844, as certain to follow the Annexation 
of Texas, and though he had repeatedly declared that, on the breaking out 
of such war, he should, in obedience to his pledges, and to his view of the 
duties of a citizen in a Republic, volunteer to aid in its prosecution, it will 
not be denied that the fact of his so doing surprised and pained the great 
body of his Northern friends and subscribers, very many of whom were 
hardly more adverse to Slavery and Annexation than to War, and especially 
offensive War. To these, his volunteering appeared a complete abandon- 
ment of the high moral position and philanthropic aims by which he had 



been so honorably distinguished. Mr. Clay's own opposite view is so fully 
set forth in the body of this volume, (See Letters to the Christian Reflector, 
and to the Tribune, from Camargo), that I shall merely refer the reader to 
those letters for his defence, simply adjing that if his Mexican service shall 
enable him to exert a more decided influence in Kentucky in favor of the 
great cause of Emancipation, to which he is still devoted, the most deter- 
mined contemner of the Mexican War will surely rejoice that this good has 
been educed from the reprehended evil. 

Mr. Clay left his home on the 7th of June, 1846, as Captain of " the Old 
Infantry," the oldest company west of the mountains, acting as Dra- 
goons, and having been conveyed by steamboat to Memphis, Mississippi, the 
regiment took up its line of march south-westwardly, through Arkansas and 
Texas, more than a thousand miles, to the Rio Grande, near Camargo, 
Mexico, and thence to Monterey and Saltillo. 

On the night of the 23d of January, 1847, a party of seventy-one cavalry, 
led by Maj. Gaines, and including Capt. Clay, was surrounded and surpr^d 
at the hacienda of Encarnacion, 110 miles in advance of Saltillo, where they 
had too securely and incautiously taken post, by a body of 3,000 Mexican 
horse, led by Gen. Minon. The surprise was complete, every avenue of 
escape trebly guarded, and the handful of our countrymen, slenderly pro- 
vided with ammunition, and without food or water, had no choice but to sub- 
mit to a capitulation, or to a useless and aimless butchery. They exacted 
and received honorable terms, and were made prisoners of war. (See Let- 
ter to N. O. Picayune, and C.'s reception speech at Richmond.) They 
marched successively to San Luis Potosi, to the city of Mexico, and to 
Toluca, where they remained until the conquest of thecapital by Gen. Scott. 
By the magnanimity of Origuibel, Governor of the Slate of Mexico, they 
were sent to the city of Mexico on parole, when they were exchanged^ and 
(the fighting being substantially at an end), they returned by way of Vera 
Cruz and New Orleans to their homes. Mr. Clay reached Lexington in 
December, 1847, and was received in that city (where he had so recently 
been mobbed and threatened with death), with public and general rejoicings, 
— a procession, address, salute of artillery, &c. In the county of his birth, 
to which he has returned to live, he was also greeted with a hearty Ken- 
tucky welcome and public reception ; and in Estill county, also, he was ten- 
dered a public reception and dinner ; and everywhere received with enthusi- 
asm. So much for the past life and services of Cassius M. Clay ; the future 
must speak for itself. 

New-York, May 1st, 1848. 



ESSAYS, SPEECHES, &c 

BY C . M . CLAY. 



HINTS ON RELIGIOUS AND CIVIL LIBERTY. 



PART L RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. , 

I. Belief. — Faith. 

Man, the earth, the sun, are thing's. They are said to he. 
The mind of man is a thing" ; it exists. It is something else 
than the earth, the sun. It sees differences between the 
thing earth, and the thing- sun ; and distinguishes those differ- 
ences by names, by language, written or spoken. Language is 
used to convey ideas of things, from one mind to another; or 
to treasure up those ideas for its own use by assisting the 
memory. Truth is a representation of things as they are ; the 
things themselves are also, in consequence of the imperfections 
of language, called truths. Falsehood is the representation of 
things as they are not. If I say that the earth and the sun 
have the same properties, the same color, solidity, and form, I 
tell a falsehood ; I state things that do not exist ; I represent 
them as they are not. The object, then, of all inquiry is truth. 
Living in a world of things, upon the knowledge of whose 
existence and laws not only our happiness but our very 
existence depend ; it is always useful to know those things, 
those laws^to know " the truth, the whole truth." For if we 
know all things that arc, we know all things that are not. If 
we know all truth, we know, as a sequence, all falsehood. 
When we see, feel, or tasie an apple, we have a sensation of 
something, external to and distinct from ourselves. When 
those impressions of other things are made upon any or all of 
our senses, in such manner that the orange is determined by 



20 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

to force conformity of opinion in Religion, Morals, Science, 
Politics, or any other department of knowledge, is not only 
absurd, but criminal. For if truth be the legitimate object of 
human inquiry, and its laws, which are the laws of nature, are 
to be obeyed in order to our happiness, then any attempt to 
influence belief or faith by jyain is in violation of all the laws 
of nature. For belief, depending on sense, consciousness, 
reason, and testimony, and not at all upon pleasure or pain, the 
use of pain to cause it, as it is absurd, so is it criminal ; for it 
violates every law of nature applicable to the case, which is 
the sum of all crime. Any person, therefore, who attempts to 
influence another's belief by any other than the means stated, 
is a criminal and a madman. "Religious tests" — Taxation for 
support of Priests — Punishments for violation of the Sabbath — 
Disturbance of Religious worship — in a word, all attempts to 
make Religion anything else than a relation between a man's 
conscience and his God, are persecution. 



III. Miracles. 

I do not say that Miracles are impossible. But that, when 
based upon testimony, only one of the four kinds of evidence, 
and that one the weakest, and in opposition to all the rest — 
they fail to carry conviction of their truth to my mind. And 
for this conviction I am neither to be praised nor blamed. 
Miracles may induce belief in one to whom they come ; but 
they cease to be conclusive* at second hand, or as soon as they 
pass from prim,ary to secondary evidence. 



* I do not assent to the proposition that Miracles are offered to onr Conscious- 
ness and Reason. It will be time enough to assume even that a Miracle is a 
violation of the laws of nature, when we perfectly understand those laws, and 
can decide off-hand that a particular phenomenon exists by their flagrant viola- 
tion. To the ephemera warmed into life by the morning's sun, niglit is a mira- 
cle — contrary to all experience — a violation of nature's laws. So is an earth- 
quake or volcano to the man who never before heard of one. But suppose 
it conceded that a miracle transcends natural laws, we have still to consider the 
great fact that God is, and that He framed Nature and her laws, and can over- 
rule either at his mere good pleasure. To assert dogmatically that He can 
never wish to suspend the laws He has established, is to assume a familiarity 
with His plans and purposes which seems to me unwarrauted by the existing 



RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 21 



IV. God. — Revelation. 

God is. I think that the argument in favor of the existence 
of God, drawn from design in the universe, is the strongest of 
all. To my mind it is conclusive. The wonderful construction 
of the human mind and body, and the universe, brings convic- 
tion of an intelligent cause — of God. The attributes of God 
are to be drawn in like manner, from the evidences of nature : 
by the fruit shall the tree be known. Paley's argument upon 
the benevolence of God seems to me to be especially conclusive. 
Other attributes also given Him by the most enlightened nations, 
are likewise known from his works. "Revelation" seems not 
to be higher evidence of God and His attributes than these, 
because it is in reality founded only upon "internal evidence" 
and testimony. Revelation is subject to the same laws of belief 

state of our knowledge. Laws are but means to ends, and when these ends 
may be better subserved by a suspension of the laws, why not suspend them ? 
To assume that God can never have occasion to overrule the laws of nature, 
seems to me to border on a confusion of laws with the Lawgiver, and to imply 
that the laws once established, the Lawgiver is fettered if not superseded by 
them. And besides, I feel a moral need of the assurance that God is, and that He 
is not a blind, inexorable Destiny, but a paternal Providence. Yet how am I to 
know and feel this, except by some clear manifestation of His being and jjower? 
Yet every such manifestation is termed a miracle — therefore deemed incredible, 
except possibly on the direct testimony of the senses. Must God, then, manifest 
Himself especially to every human being, or leave them to grope in the dark- 
ness of heathenism ? I think not. 

Now, as to the force of Testimony: although a man may lie, it seems to me 
possible so to combine and interlace testimony that it shall absolutely command 
belief. For instance, that Adams and JeSerson, the two chief quthors of our 
National Independence, should live just half a century to a day after that Inde- 
pendence was declared, and die on the fiftieth anniversary of its declaration, 
and that the messengers conveying from their distant residences the tidings of 
their respective deaths, should meet exactly in Philadelphia, where that Inde- 
pendence was matured and proclaimed — I hardly know anything recorded more 
astonishing than this, nor more suggestive of direct Providential interposition. 
Yet I know that such were the facts ; and any man who lives hereafter may 
satisfy himself that tliey were so by carefully examining and comparing the 
journals and other publications of 1826. The testimony of many concurring 
witnesses to an occurrence, when collusion between them was manifestly im- 
possible, may establish it more strongly than direct sight or hearing could do. 
I therefore esteem perfectly rational and logical my belief in Divine Revelation 
as a verity, and in Miracles, so called, as the strongest possible attestations that 
Christ, the Savior, came to earth commissioned and empowered by God. — 
Editor. 



22 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

as Miracles. Revelation is conclusive only to whom it comes 
in personal identity. When it goes a step farther, it becomes 
testimony — subject to all its laws, as other events : and may or 
may not produce belief. Its " internal evidence" always being 
the strongest item in influencing belief, cannot rise, the spring, 
higher than the fountain-head. "Internal evidence" means 
conformity to the known laws of things ; which knowledge is 
based at last upon the Senses, Consciousness, and Reason. 



V. The Jewish Bible, or Old Testament. 

" The Bible " is the history of the laws, country, customs, and 
men of the Jewish nation. Its truth must be judged of by the 
same laws of evidence as the truth of other ancient books. As 
a code of laws it is no more binding upon me, than the history 
of the Greeks, and the Romans, and the Chinese. 

The will of God, so far as I learn it from the history of the 
Jews, I must obey, or suffer the penalty. So, also, I say 
of the history of the Romans, the Greeks, and all other nations. 
If, after maturely reading it, studying its internal evidence, and 
the collateral testimony of others, I conclude that it is Divine — 
well ; if not, ivell. 



VI. The New Testament. — Christ. 

The New Testament, the history of Christ, is true. I know 
no higher code of morals among men. His doctrine is in ac- 
cordance with all the known laws of nature. The spirit of God 
is displayed in his whole life. He speaks of God as the father 
of all men ; and of all men as brothers. As the father loves the 
children, and as the children love the father and each other, so 
also is it with God and His creatures. Christ teaches man's 
whole duty, "Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and 
thy neighbor as thyself; on these hang all the law and the 
prophets." This is the embryo j)rinciple of all morality. Away 
with the blood of animals, and vain ceremonies, and long 
prayers, and ascetic debasements ! Here is religion promoting 



RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. . ■ 23 

the great ends of all creation — the happiness of all God's crea- 
tures ! Eternal and glorious spirit of the Father of all ! in 
Jesus Christ of Nazareth we know the truest manifestation of 
Thyself; inspire our souls with a kindred flame, that " Thy king- 
dom come, and Thy mil be done, on earth as it is in Heaven." 



Vn. Sin.— Evil.— The Devil. 

When we .put our hand in the fire it pains us. Who created 
the pain, God or the Devil? The pain is evidently an incident 
of the flesh, one of its laws, one of its attributes. If God made 
the man, he made the pain. What ! God make pain— make 
"evil?" Yes. For benevolent purposes. For if the pain did 
not give the man warning that his person was burning, it would 
be destroyed ; then would human life end, and all this " beauti- 
ful world " would to him cease. I say then with Paley, that pain 
is not the object of life, but a mere law for the preservation of 
man's physical being. " Partial evil is universal good." But is 
not death an evil ? I would, taking the whole universe of God 
in view, say, no. Because, from all the observation which we 
can make, it seems, that God created the \|prld for the greatest 
happiness of the greatest possible number of his creatures — men, 
and other animals. We are bound to believe that he made 
them as happy as possibli/ consistent with his own ends. The 
law of nature, or of (iod, seems to be, that there should exist on 
the earth the greatest possible quantity of life and happiness. 
And paradoxical as it may seem, death is conducive to this end. 
Take a single instance. In a pond of an acre in size, were 
there no eating of each other, or no death, I cannot readily 
imagine how a perch of six pounds weight could live. Where 
would he get food enough for his subsistence ? But he eats the 
one pound fish ; the one pound fish eats the minnow ; the 
minnow eats the worm : and the worm eats the decayed 
vegetable matter that washes into the pond from the rains, or 
that lines its circumference. Here, then, are myriads of lives 
in consequence of death ; whereas, without death, we cannot 
conceive of the subsistence at all of thousands of beings now 
existent. Besides, suppose men immortal in the flesh ; all young 
if you please ; what becomes of the parental love, the beauty of 



24 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

childhood, the promise of early youth, of filial aflection, and 
reverence for age? For if the old die not, the young cannot be 
born — there is no room for them. I conclude, then, that evil in 
the long run is swallowed up in good, and mysteriously sub- 
serves it. Physical evil brings pain — moral evil brings remorse. 
When the body violates physical laws, pain gives warning. 
When the laws of mind are violated, remorse gives warning. 
Both say, stop — turn and live — and be happy. The violation 
of physical laws is evil — physical evil. The violation of moral 
laws is moral evil — sin. They are both equally the will of God. 
They are the similar attributes of distinct things, mind and body. 
If the first be of God, then is also the second. The Devil, then, 
has no work left. He is a figure of speech — -an allegory. He 
is not a distinct Beinff. 



Vni. The Immortality of the Soul. 

The existence of the mind, or the soul, is as certain as any 
other known thing. That the body and the soul are not one, 
or the same, is as demonstrable a truth, as that fire and watei 
are not identical ; oflthat the sun and the earth are not the same 
thing. The body moves from place to place, grows by eating' 
matter, is subject to certain forms, color, heat, and pain. The 
mind or soul thinks of the future ; remembers the past ; collects 
facts ; forms th^eories ; has neither color, heat, nor form. In a 
word, mind and body, of all known things, have fewest proper- 
ties in conmion. If, then, there be in all nature two dis- 
tinct entities, they are soul and matter. But gross unthinking 
matter is composed of elements which are imperishable — in 
other words, matter is everlasting ; — how much more then is the 
ethereal thinking soul innnortal ! 

Since the mind then is immortal, we are induced to believe 
that its character is unchanged in a future state ; the good, is 
good still, and the bad, bad. Future rewards and punislnnents 
then seem necessary sequences of the immortality of the soul ; 
the truth of which has been demonstrated. The " resurrection 
of the body "' — of the identical body — seems to be inconsistent 
wnth the known laws of physics — impossible in the nature of 
thingfs. 



CIVIL LIBERTY. 25 

In giving my views upon such serious subjects, I have looked 
only to the establishment of Truth, and human happiness. I 
come not to destroy, but to save. If I have erred, I shall be 
happy to be set right. My religion is, that truth is always use- 
ful — is God's law ; that intolerance, so far from being a virtue, 
is the greatest of crimes ; that liberty of thought is the gift of 
Deity — the right of every responsible being. 



PART II.— CIVIL LIBERTY. 

I. State of Nature. 

Man, like most animals, is gregarious. Both by sympathy, 
or instinct and reason, which teaches him utiUty, he associates in 
multitudes. The attempt to ridicule what is called the "state 
of nature," has generally come from monopolists ! I take it 
lliat there is now, and always has been,* a "state of nature" in 
some portion of the world. The reasoning founded on such 
a state then, is reasoning founded \\\^on fact, which is the leg-iti- 
matc basis of all disquisition. But even if we were confined to 
reasoning : having no people in a " state of nature : " such a state 
can be logically, in our eye, deduced. For if man be progressive, 
as all admit— unlike other animals, accumulating the expe- 
rience of preceding generations — he must have advanced from 
an indefinite point. Not, indeed, an infinite degree below pre- 
sent civilization, but an undefined degree. To go as low as 
other animal nature is suflftcient for our purpose. Say then, 
that man was once governed by such influences as herd horses 
or deer ; then was he in a " state of nature " sutficient for our 
purpose ; and that he has been in that state is beyond question. 
In such a state there was no compulsion for association used 
by one over another, for such is the law of the beasts. In such 
a state all did as they pleased ; no one attempted to influence 
another by opinion, or by physical force. That the stronger 
robbed the weaker, if he pleased, is equally clear. We mean, 



26 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

then, only to say, that each did as nearly as he pleased as he 
was able. In such a state, then, all were equal in laio, for each 
man's own will was the o?di/ law. 



II. Force. 

It may be said truly that there was a law other than each 
man's will, namely, physical force. The stronger killed the 
weaker, and robbed him, or subjected him to slavery, and by the 
terror of superior might fed upon the bread of unpaid labor. 
That law did exist, does now exist. But the sivord is its only 
sanction. 

" They who live by the sword shall perish by the sword." 
When the strong man slept, the weaker one was then the 
stronger, and became master. When the strong was sick, 
the weaker was then the stronger, and grasping the sword he 
slew the slayer. Such was the case ; such is the case. And 
against ih'^ right of ihe sword there is no other argument but 
the sword. We do not write a book for men who regard force as 
a rule of right. Reason, truth, justice, are to them unmeaning 
terms ; their understanding lies in the flesh and the blood ves- 
sels : it can be reached only by leaden bullets and cold steel ! 



III. Mutual Interest — "the Greatest Happiness." 

Rising one degree higher in the progress of mankind — higher 
than that period when individual will and force were the only 
laws— we come to mutual interest. The strong man finding 
that there were times when he might be weak, was pained by 
apprehension of future danger, and sought out some other basis 
of safety than his individual might. Two or more weak men 
banded together to intimidate the stronger, or actually set upon 
him and slew him. Here was an agreement on all sides, no 
matter whether expressed or implied, to forego the natural right 
of killing each other, for the higher good of being safe from the 
assaults of others ; or, to use Bentham's language, there was 
" more happiness " in society and safety, than in individual will 



CIVIL LIBERTY. 27 

and liahility to murder. The same reasonings began to secure 
first, life, then property, and then character, and such happiness 
as resuks from their undisturbed enjoyment — as the American 
declaration of rights has it, " the pursuit of happiness." 



IV. Government. 

So soon as force began to give way to reason, or mutual in- 
terest, government began. Its foundation then, in all its 
breadth, and deptli, and length, is in the " consent of the go- 
verned," and in nothing else. That government uses force is 
true, but it is force with the addition of an omnipotent ought. 
It is force to save, not to destroy. Right and wrong, good and 
bad, injurious and useful, now begin to appear among men. 
Paley very aptly says a tooth was made to chew with, not for 
the purpose of aching: The object of the government is to se- 
cure happiness to all its members ; not to oppress any. A, B, 
and C, and D, are the society ; A ought to be, or has as much 
right to be, protected in the eating of the fish he catches ; and 
B has a right to be protected in the eating of the venison he 
kills ; so of C and D. • Now, if A comes upon B to rob him, 
he becomes not a useful member of society ; he does wrong, 
he does not consult the " greatest happiness " of himself, in the 
long run, nor of the other members of society. B, C, and D, 
use force against him ; reason has failed to influence him ; the 
sword must. These men, then, are equal in their rights. I 
say, then, all men are, politically — in respect to all that govern- 
ment can legitimately do, ought to do, can possibly do, in virtue 
of being a government — equal. Because A is six feet high, 
" born," or " created," — I care not for terms — and B is only four 
feet high — in tliat respect plainly nnejpial — ^does it follow that 
C or D, or any other person, shall come upon them and take 
away their fish or their venison ? Surely not. Again, A, B, 
C', and 1), the society having agreed to protect each one in his 
accumulations of labor, his property, and having agreed that it 
was most useful, right, conducive to the greatest happiness, for 
A to transmit his property at his death, to his son, E, and B 
his property to liis two sons, K and M, now, if it turn out that 



28 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

M is born with less property than E, does this inequality/ en- 
title C or D, or any one else, to plunder both, under the con- 
temptible plea that they are not born equal in property ? 

The declaration of American rights is true then in the whole 
large and broad sense in which it was spoken — Jeremy Ben- 
tham and other cavillers to the contrary notwithstanding! 
" All men are created equal." 



V. Monarchy. — Aristocracy. — Republicanism. 

From what I have said it is plain that government is founded 
by " the consent of the governed," either tacit or expressed. It 
is possible to attain all its legitimate objects by any for7)i. If 
a people consent, or without any intimidation of mind, or ap- 
prehension of force, submit to a despotism, that is a legitimate 
government. The despot may perform all his duties, may im- 
prison the thief and hang the murderer, and do anything that 
best secures the happiness of his people. A, B, and C would 
commit treason in attempting to dethrone him, and set up a re- 
publicanism, so long as a majority of the people preferred a des- 
potism. But if the despot kill *A to enjoy his wife or his pro- 
perty — let him have a care ! — all allegiance due him is gone ! 
For he was allowed to be despot to do good, not to do evil ; to 
hold power under the implied understanding that he would be 
just ; would do right ; secure the happiness of his people. If 
he would avoid this awfully precarious position, let him become 
a constitutional monarch — let him form an aristocracy — a re- 
public, and by sharing his power lessen his danger. For all 
three of these governments may do wrong, and deserve punish- 
ment when they transgress — fail to secure the happiness of the 
people, as much as the despot, were it possible to inflict it. A 
constitutiojial monarchy is a government which can exist by 
the consent of the governed, and is better than a despotism ; for 
it is plain that a despotism — its existence depending upon a sin- 
o-le wilful crime of the despot, must be in j^erpetual revolution, 
in consequence of the infirmities of men, or become illegiti- 
mate — that is, based upon force and not the consent of the peo- 
ple. A monarcliy, on the contrary, by the punishing of minis- 



CIVIL LIBERTY. * 29 

ters, or by co-ordinate branches of power, as the parhament of 
England, may do wrong and receive punishment, and not cease 
to exist. So of an aristocracy. 

No doubt the legitimate ends of government may be attained 
under all i\\eforf?is named. We can only say that despotism 
is least likely to attain the ends of society ; or is, in other words, 
the worst form of government. For to be secure is one thing ; 
to have assurance of future security, is another thing. I ima- 
gine an aristocracy is the next worst. A constitutional monar- 
chy, like England, is the best of the three ; but a republic is the 
best of all. All of them may do wrong ; may not subserve the 
ends of government — security of property, life, and character, 
and the " pursuit of happiness." All we can say is, that the 
chances of doing wrong in a republic are less than under other 
forms of government, and herein Mr. Pope errs — 

" About forms of governments let fools contest, 
That, which is best administered, is best." 

We are not satisfied with not being robbed of our property, 
defamed in character, and killed in person, but the apprehen- 
sion of such results is an evil to be avoided. It is true, it mat- 
ters not to me, when the act is done, whether the majority of 
the people, a mob of " respectable gentlemen," or the Emperor 
of China, murder me. Still, there is more hope that laws in re- 
publics will restrain mobs and secure rights, than that despots 
would do the same, of their own will. That republics will 
always regard the legitimate ends of government, the security 
of the rights of all, is not to be hoped ; for man is by nature im- 
perfect, as we have seen in the first part of this essay. 

But take an extreme case — that all governments will do 
wrong, and that continually — still is a republic best ; for a ma- 
jority of the people, if plunder be a blessing, will enjoy it. The 
"greatest happiness" will be diffused over the greatest number, 
and millions preying upon the minority will enjoy, what in a 
despotism, at the same, or rather a greater expenditure of hu- 
man misery, will be enjoyed by a single man. But such a case 
is hardly possible, as ten men systematically oppressing" the mi- 
nority, /line ; for, when it does assume a permanent form of 
tyranny, it will soon cease to exist. By nature's law crime 
works out its own destruction at last — " a lie cannot live for 
ever." The majority will finally disagree, and bring the former 



30 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

minority into the ascendency, in the same form ; or else the 
minority will join one of the disaffected parts of the former 
majority, and make some other form of government, more likely 
to give security to life, property, and character. 



VI. Liberty. 

Liberty, then, is security from aggression in the possession of 
life, property, and character, and the happiness accruing from 
their undisturbed enjoyment, with reasonable guaranties of its 
perpetuity. 

Absolute liberty is attainable only by God. Man in " a state 
of nature" has some liberty, as I have shown, if my definition 
be good. A might fish, and hunt, and sleep in caves, and in the 
thick woods, and be tolerably secure from the death blows, rob- 
bery, or defamation of B. Still he would be very much tram- 
meled in his enjoyment of these blessings. He might obtain a 
hard and precarious livelihood, and the coarser animal enjoy- 
ments. But w^hen he planted corn, or fruit trees, B would come 
upon hhn and eat; and when he built a shelter against the in- 
clemency of the elements, B would take possession. No 
government then is so bad, or has so little liberty jjermanently 
as a " state of nature ;" otherwise men would flee to the hills, 
and groves, and caves, for safety, and society be dissolved. That 
governments sometimes become so oppressive to a portion of the 
people, that they possess less liberty than in '• a state of nature," 
is true. Such is the case with slavery in the United States, the 
West Indies, and South America. To the African slave, go- 
vernment brings no boon. It has stripped him of all his natural 
rights under the irretencc of protection. It secures him neither 
life, nor property, nor character ; but systematically strips him 
of all. The wild man of the woods is more fortunate than he ; 
there is no concert among his hunters. But here numbers band 
together, not to protect, but to plunder ; not to save, but to de- 
stroy ! And when intolerable oppi'ession dries up the affections 
of the heart, destroys all the sensibilities of enjoyment, and 
degrades men below the beasts of the field, or else plants a field 
of unsati'ijied desires in the soul, and the slave flies instinct- 
ively to the woods — with overpowering numbers and inevitable 



CIVIL LIBERTY. 31 

bloodhounds, he is hunted back to his earthly hell ! This is an 
extreme case ; I use extreme language ; but language fails me 
here ! 

Here, then, are governments which do not even pretend to the 
hberty enjoyed in the despotisms of Europe, and Asia, and 
Africa, and the Isles of the Seas. In our own land, in hot haste 
to oppress a portion of society, they have struck down their own 
liberties ! Some of these states have already attained that point 
when majorities systematically oppress minorities for their own 
selfish enjoyment ; and even when minorities eat the bread of 
forced majorities, though nature and nature's God have sworn 
by the eternity of things, a wrong shall not be permament — a 
lie shall not live for ever ! This wrong cannot be confined to 
color. Already, as might have been anticipated, the national 
sense of justice — of right and wrong, languishes ; the majority 
begins to act upon the principle, that " to the victors belong the 
spoils," and grow strong in the determination to live upon the 
forced labor of the minority. There is no hope, for a man 
who has made up his mind to do wrong systematically, until he 
abandons his system, and has determined to attempt the right. 
So also with governments. They have Moses and the Prophets ; 
tliey will not hear one though he arise from the dead ! If all 
time, all moralists, all jurists^if Jesus Christ and his followers 
have spoken in vain, then most surely must I be silent. Where 
there is slavery, there is not, and never can be, liberty. The 
thing is axiomatic. Human reason and human language stop 
here. 



VII. Guaranties of Liberty. — Suffrage. 

If society is formed for the protection of all its members, it is 
plain that all have an ecjual right to choose the mode of govern- 
ment, and if rulers are elective, to vote. That a man, or a set 
of men have a right to disfranchise themselves, is plain; but 
then it must as plainly appear that they have willingly done so. 
The people have at times denied tiiemselves the right of choos- 
ing judges, and other high officers, trusting to the judgment of 
more intelligent electors. 

Minors, and idiots, and insane persons, being incapable of 



32 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

taking care of themselves in " a state of nature," and in society, 
are in both cases, at the mercy of society. Society is bound to 
secure their rights also ; that is, such rights as they are capable 
of using without detriment to others ; among which voting is 
not one. That idiots and insane persons have no right to marry, 
seems also plain ; for it would be a great injury to humanity, 
by perpetuating disease and folly, without an equivalent good 
to the individual authors of them. 

Some politicians and moralists have affected to deny to indi- 
viduals any rights more than the already existing government 
allows. Minors and women say they are forbid the right of 
suffrage ; and therefore A, B, and C are rightly forbid to vote. 
The reason^ why minors are forbidden to vote, is the presump- 
tion that they are incapable of taking care of themselves. If 
the reason fails, then the rule fails. And should it appear that 
men generally at eighteen are capable of wisely governing 
themselves, then no government ought to restrain their majority 
till they are twenty-one years of age. But the rule of exclusion 
does not extend to A, B, and C, men of good mind and mature 
years, and of course they cannot justly be debarred from the 
equal right of voting. Of course the argument is bnly a sophism 
of men who are determined to cover up a wrong with the smoke 
of logic. Neither is the argument of any weight against uni- 
versal suffrage, that women are not, or ought not to be, allowed 
to vote. For should it turn out that there are no guaranties for 
their security without voting ; or should it appear that they are 
capable of voting judiciously, without a loss of a greater good, 
then they have a right to vote. 

I believe, and they believe, that the sympathy of the sexes is 
sufficient for their protection in the enjoyment of life, property, 
and character ; and that voting would not increase, at all events, 
that security. That the retiring virtues and modesty of women 
are more powerful than the ballot ; and that they would lose 
power by minglisg in the angry and indecent contests of the 
polls. I conclude, then, that it is best for women not to exercise 
the right. The argument, then, founded upon the non-voting of 
women, also falls to the ground. 

The saying tliat " they who own the country should govern 
the country," though more specious, is equally false. If property 
were the only right which society proposes to secure, the argu- 
ment would be conclusive. But as life (in which we include 



CIVIL LIBERTY. 33 

all its minor postulates, preservation of limbs, freedom from 
blows, imprisonment, and slavery, &c.), and character (in which 
we also reckon the liberty to attain by legitimate means posts 
of honor and profit, (fcc), are also rights which society ought to 
protect ; and as they are of equal or rather greater moment than 
property, government has performed only a third part of its 
objects, when it has protected property. The argument that 
'■ when property holders protect themselves, they of course 
protect others," is not only in logic, a j}etitio prmcipii, but false 
in fact, and unworthy of refutation. 

That there might in legislative bodies be two houses, one in 
some sort representing property, and the other representing 
more immediately personal right, seems reasonable. But after 
all, the best security that property has, in all governments, 
against the plunder of the indolent and indigent, is in its 
distribution among a large majority of the people. For a man 
will stand by his little, with as stout a good will and courage, 
as the millionnaire will by his millions. 

It becomes all nations, then, to guard, as much as possible, 
consistently with the undisturbed accumulations of industry, 
against monopolies and overgrown estates, which arise not 
unfrequcntly from fraud or governmental aid. More especially 
does it become every nation having wild lands, to shape their 
laws so as to divide them as much as may be among the great 
mass of her people. 

For I confess that I have but little hope of the permanence 
of any government, when the property of the nation is in the 
hands of a considerable minority of its people. 

It is hardly necessary to state here that the same rules which 
regulate the formation and sustainment of a government apply 
to its change and dissolution. 



VIII. Guaranties of Lirerty, continued. — Trial by 
Jury. 

The next thing after making the laws, is, the insuring their 
sensible and impartial administration. 

The same reasoning which applies relatively to Despotism 
and Republicanism, may be extended to trial by a single judge, 
3 



34 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

and by a jury. The judge would no doubt be generally the 
more intelligent tribunal ; but then he would know more men 
personally, have more ambitious ends to attain, and be more 
liable to corruption. A jury of six or twelve men, selected 
beforehand, from sober and respectable citizens, seems to have 
more qualifications for im.partiality than a judge. And after 
all, we consider impartiality the highest attribute of judgment ; 
for few are so low in the scale of intelligence, as not to be 
competent for the trial and decision of causes, after full and able 
discussion by counsel. Absolute justice in human affairs is 
unattainable ; we believe that " Trial by Jury " is one of its 
surest guaranties. 

That in criminal trials the accused should be confronted face 
to face with his accusers. — and that oral testimony should in 
all cases, where it is practicable, be given, is reasonable. But 
that depositions should be taken in many instances, as evidence 
in criminal cases, seems equally plain. Many men being in a 
transitory state, and living at a distance, conceal their know- 
ledge of criminal offences ; because they fear detention in person. 
This could be obviated by depositions properly guarded. There 
are obviously other instances in which justice is evaded by this 
absurd rule. 

The law allowing a man to refuse to "criminate himself," — 
and to plead not guilty as a matter of course— or to stand mute 
when questioned— is utterlij ahsrird. Mr. Bentham very well 
observes that the hardship of criminating one's-self " is not harder 
than being punished for crime." If one don't want to criminate 
himself, let him cease to commit crime. We consider that this 
is not one of the guaranties of liberty, but one of the abetments 
of crime. 

I agree also with Mr. Bentham that the legal fiction of man 
and wife's oneness should be abolished, for the same reasons. 
" A man's house is his castle," " habeas corpus," and some 
other safeguards of liberty, may be ranked under the head of 
guaranties, but hardly rise to the dignity of separate discussion. 



CIVIL LIBERTY. 35 

IX. The Guaranties of Liberty, continued. — Peace- 
able Assemblages of the People. — Right op 
Petition. 

^One of the chief devices of tyranny for the protection of its 
assumed power, is to raise the cry of mad-dog seditioti, against 
inquiry into the abuses and usurpations of rulers. And thus 
they array, without investigation, the prejudices and passions 
of all law-abiding' citizens, against any man, of however lofty 
and disinterested virtue, who dares to canvass the corruptions 
of state. yPeaceable assemblages of the people for the discussion 
of public affairs are only terrible to tyrants. But on the other 
hand, when these assAiiblages, instead of discussion for the 
enlig-hteiinient of the constituted authorities, assume the attitude 
of threatening' and intimidation, they are then traitors and 
tyrants themselves. For neither the King, nor Parliament, 
nor the Representatives, nor the people, are higher than the 
laws. The latp, until constitutionally changed, is the highest 
power in a nation. 

The assemblage of the citizens of Kentucky on the 18th of 
August, 184.5, at Lexington, Kentucky, who violated the consti- 
tution and laws of the state, and of the American Union, were 
traitors, and merited the death of felons. Crime cannot be 
modified in its character by numbers ; it may by numbers go 
iinwhippcd of justice ; but it remains, in the eyes of God, and 
the wise and good of all time, still crime ! 

So the monster meetings of Daniel O'Connell, in Ireland, for 
which and whom I have the highest respect, through noble 
motives, did undertake to intimidate the British crown ; and 
assumed a character o{ force, which was illegal. I trust I speak 
with no personal prejudice, but with the freedom of a moralist, 
who writes for all countries and all time. 

The right of petitioning rulers in a respectful manner, for the 
redress of grievances, or for special acts of any kind, comes under 
the same category ; and is subject to the same laws of reason- 
ing. Both are, in fact, but modes of freedom of speech and the 
press, and cannot be lost without losing all true liberty. 

I regard the act of J. Q,. Adams in finally vindicating " the 
right of petition," as one of the most noble and glorious achieve- 
ments in all history ; which places him eminently above all the 



36 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

men of his country. For in maintaining the hberty of his 
country, in a great principle^ he has become the victor, not of 
a single revolution, nor the benefactor of a single people, but the 
defender of the freedom of all countries, and of all coming time. 



X. Guaranties of Liberty, continued- — Liberty op 
Speech and of the Press. 

I come at last to the chief guaranty of all liberty, civil and 
religious. As I cannot imagine a despotism to exist with 
freedom of speech and the press, so I cannot conceive for a 
moment of a free government existing without liberty of speech 
and of the press. This is a proposition not only sealed with the 
blood of the most noble martyrs— but what is more in a logical 
point of view — established by the unanimous vote of the most 
brilliant intellects, and the truest spirits of all ages. If all that 
has been said on this subject were collected in one volume, 
there is hardly a book in existence that would be filled with 
more cogent logic, and fervid eloquence, and immutable truth, 
I shall not, therefore, attempt to reason upon the main proposi- 
tion. I shall only add that this, like all truth, is universal. 
That the liberty of speech and the press must extend to all 
subjects whatever, or else there is no liberty at all! The 
moment you bind it with the least possible cord — it dies ! The 
Pope says : discuss freely all subjects, but don't touch with 
profane hands, holy things — don't canvass religion ! There is 
no liberty, then, in Popedom, The Czar of Russia says : dis- 
cuss all things else, but don't meddle with my tenure of power ! 
There is no liberty in the Russias ! The king and parliament 
of England say : speak freely of science, and religion,^of all 
things ; but don't decry the Constitution of England ; don't 
speak of Republicanism here ! There is no liberty in England ! 
The United States say : abuse, if you please, the Pope ; denounce 
the Czar ; don't spare the iniquities of British aristociacy and 
oppression ; but don't interfere with slavery — that's a delicate 
relation — a '■^peculiar institution''^ — let that alone, or we'll 
Lynch you ! There is, then, no liberty in America. So long 
as there is one thing in a nation which cannot be discussed — 
there is no freedom of speech or the press in that nation. 



CIVIL LIBERTY. 37 

What are called '"'the abuses" of the liberty of the press and 
of speech, are utterly digtinct from " freedom of speech and of 
the press." A man may be punished for slander^ which is a 
crime, and the "liberty of speech" remain intact. The crime 
here is not simply in speaking, but in speaking- a lie. To set 
about the destruction of the freedom of speech because men 
sometimes lie, would be about as contemptibly absurd, as to 
destroy all government for the same reason ! 

The liberty of the press is not terrible in its lies, but in its 
truth : and truth is terrible only to criminals ! 

The same class of men who advocate despotism — who hold 
force as a rule of right — who cling to the faith that it is not 
always meet that the truth be spoken — are the same fellows 
who are terribly afraid of the '• abuses of the liberty of the press." 
They are afraid of being slandered — are they ? not at all ; they 
are afraid the truth will he told upon them ! To them, indeed, 
"the greater the truth, the greater the slander!" The propa- 
gators of the most criminal errors become suddenly, when 
some one is about to expose their villany, afraid that unbridled 
opinion may upset truth and religion ! The most bloody 
tyrants, when their corruptions are about to be exposed, all at 
once are awfully shocked, lest some madman may, with reckless 
innovation, destroy " the peace and security of the people .'" 

Perpetrators of systematic crime of all sorts, are always afraid 
of ^^ fanaticism!''' which, interpreted, means truth with the 
sword of long- delayed vengeance ! The liberty of the press 
and of speech, is to them as Jesus to the devils of old ! Well 
may they cry out in wild despair : " what have we to do with 
thee, thou son of God!^'' 



ADDRESS 

BEFORE THE 

SENIOR CLASS OF YALE, 

FEBRUARY 22d, 1832, 

THE CENTENNIAL BIRTH-DAY OF WASHINGTON 



Gentlemen of Yale College : 

Were a stranger to visit this land, ia this time of peace and 
plenty, this mildness and tranquillity of nature, and hear, at a 
distance, the loud peals of cannon, and the murmurs of assem- 
bled multitudes, behold crowds of both sexes, and every age, 
moving in anxiety to the churches and places of public convo- 
cation, in amazement he would exclaim, " What means this hur- 
ried array ! this mighty tumult ! What threatened invasion ; 
what great political commotion ; what impending convulsion of 
nature, draws together thirteen millions of human beings ? " 

Illustrious, departed shade ! whom we this day call to memory, 
this could not be. For from what land shall he come who knows 
not thy great and virtuous deeds ? What language shall he 
speak, who has not heard the name of Washington ? 

We are assembled to-day, a great and intelligent nation, to 
offer up our thanks to the Author of our being for the many 
and signal favors bestowed upon us as a people. To give to 
departed worth our highest approbation, the voluntary tribute of 
grateful remembrance. To manifest to mankind, and our pos- 
terity, the regard which we entertain for the blessings of reli- 
gious and political freedom, which our gallant ancestors have 
bequeathed us. To make ourselves better men, and better 
citizens. It is enough for one man, that thirteen millions of 
intelligent beings have assembled in his name. Any efforts 
which I might make to color his fame by indulging in pane- 
gyric, would be trifling with the feelings of this assembly ; for, 
from the throbbing bosom and brightening eye, I perceive that 
you have outstripped the slow pace of language, and already 
given way to the grateful emotions of the soul. I shall there- 



ADDRESS. 39 

fore briefly touch upon a few incidents of his hfe, and proceed 
to some other considerations, which may be not inappropriate 
to the occasion. It was the good fortune of Washington to 
unite in one personage the far distant and almost incompatible 
talents of the politician and soldier. It would not, I presume, 
be considered disrespectful to say, that this circumstance is the 
only one which made a material distinction between him and 
some others of his noble compatriots. Other men may have 
conceived as high designs, and entertained as exalted patriotism ; 
but it was for Washington to conceive, and to execute; and 
what he declared with the pen in the cabinet, to conclude with 
the sword in the field. Other men would have been proud of 
the honor of pre-eminence in either department ; but Washing- 
ton drank deep of the glory of each, and was not intoxicated 
with the draught : for he was subject to temptation, on a most 
signal occasion, yet his virtue and patriotism failed not in the 
hour of trial. 

Success had crowned his efforts against a foreign foe. His 
followers, stung with the ingratitude of a preserved country, 
who refused the poor tribute of soldier's wages, w^ere united 
to him by the strongest ties — the sense of common suffering 
and injustice. Inflanmiatory letters were industriously circu- 
lated throughout the army, by an insidious enemy. The 
republic, in its very infancy, was about to pass the way of all 
democracies, and on the eve of yielding up her dearly bought 
liberties to her chieftain. Then do we see the grey headed 
patriot, coming forward in deep and sorrowful mood, and hear 
his faltering voice, entreating them, to spare themselves — to 
spare him — what? An ignominious death? No! to spare him 
the titles, the honors, the arbitrary power, for which others have 
deemed the risk of life not too dear a sacrifice. Raising the 
mtercepted letters to his face, while the gathering tear suffused 
his sight, he uttered those memorable words, " My eyes have 
grown dim in the service of my country." Where, in the long 
annals of the reputed sayings of departed sages, shall we find 
the equal of this more than eloquence — this pouring forth of the 
soul ? It was then that tyranny was rebuked ; and liberty drew 
immortal inspiration. For selfishness and power were disrobed 
of their tinsel ornaments, ambition loosed his deadly grasp, and 
liberty and virtue, in union, winged their heavenly flight! 

I pass over his virtues, and his public acts. His virtues are 



40 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

known, and more appropriately mentioned by our fire-sides, and 
in the private circle. 'Tis there we love to dwell upon the 
scenes of his infancy, and the virtuous impressions made upon 
his tender mind, in the day when the destiny of empires is in 
the hands of a woman. Well for mankind, that he was in the 
hands of a mother, a woman, who, in those days, filled the high 
rank allotted her by nature, to be the instructress, as well as 
the plaything companion of man. His public acts — they are 
inwoven with our Constitution and laws. They are known 
and appreciated by the politician and the jurist ; and are more 
immediately objects for the contemplation of those concerned in 
the administration of the government. 

What then remains for this occasion ? Washington is gone, 
and his virtues and his exploits are reserved for mention, at 
other times. The effects, my countrymen, the effects ! " The 
man dies, but his memory lives." How many like the great 
Emmet have died, and left only a name to attract our admira- 
tion for their virtues, and our regret for their untimely fall, to 
excite to deeds which they would, but could not effect ! But 
what has Washington left behind, save the glory of a name ? 
The independent mind, the conscious pride, the ennobling prin- 
ciple of the soul — a nation of freemen. What did he leave? 
He left us to ourselves. This is the sum of our liberties, the 
first principle of government, the power of public opinion — pub- 
lic opinion, the only permanent power on earth. When did a 
people flourish like Americans ? Yet where, in a time of peace, 
has more use been made with the pen, or less with the sword 
of power ? When did a religion flourish like the Christian, 
since they have done away with intolerance ? Since men have 
come to believe and know, that physical force cannot affect the 
immortal part, and that religion is between the conscience and 
the Creator only. He of 622, who with the sword propagated 
his doctrines throughout Arabia, and the greater part of the 
oarbarian world ; against the power of whose tenets the physical 
force of all Christendom was opposed in vain ; under the effective 
operations of freedom of opinion, is fast passing the way of all 
error. 

Napoleon, the contemporary of our Washington, is fast dying 
away from the lips of men. He, who shook the whole civilized 
earth — who, in an age of knowledge and concert among nations, 
held the world at bay — at whose exploits the imagination be- 



ADDRESS. 41 

comes bewildered— who, in the eve of his glory, was honored 
with the pathetic appellation of " the last, lone, captive of mil- 
lions in war,"— even he, is now known only in history. The 
vast empire was fast tumbling to ruins, whilst he yet held the 
sword. He passed away, and left '' no successor" there ! The 
unhallowed light Avhich obscured is gone ; but brightly beams, 
i/et, the name of Washington ! 

This freedom of opinion, which has done so much for the 
political and religious liberty of America, has not been confined 
to this continent. People of other countries begin to inquire, to 
examine, and to reason for themselves. Error has fled before 
it, and the most inveterate prejudices are dissolved and gone. 
Such unlimited remedy has in some cases indeed apparently 
proved injurious, but the evil is to be attributed to the pecu- 
liarity of the attendant circumstances, or the ill-timed application- 
Let us not force our tenets upon foreigners. For if we subject 
opinion to coercion, who shall be our inquisitors ? No ; let us 
do as we have done, as we are now doing, and then call upon 
the nations to examine, to scrutinize, and to condemn ! No ! 
they cannot look upon America, to-day, and pity— for the glad- 
dened heart disclaims all woe. They cannot look upon her, 
and deride ; for genius, and literature, and science, are soaring 
above the high places of birth and pageantry. They cannot 
look upon us, and defy ; for the hearts of thirteen millions are 
warm in virtuous emulation ; their arms steeled in the cause of 
their country. Her productions are wafted to every shore ; her 
flag is seen waving in every sea. She has wrested the glorious 
motto from the once queen of the seas, and high on our banner, 
by the stars and stripes, is seen : 

" Columbia needs no bulwark, 
No towers along the steep, 
Her march is o'er the mountain wave, 
Her home is on the deep." 

But on this day of freemen's rejoicings, and all this mutual 
congratulation, " this feast of the soul, this pure banquet of the 
heart," does no painful reflection rush across the unquiet con- 
science? no blush of insincerity suffuse the countenance, where 
joy and gratitude should hold undivided sway ? When we come 
this day, as one great family, to lay our poor oflering on the 
altar, to that God who holds the destinies of nations in his hand, ' 



42 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

are there none afar off, cast down and sorrowful, who dare not 
approach the common aUar ; who cannot put their hands to 
their hearts, and say ; "Oh, Washington, what art thou to us? 
Are we not also freemen ? " 

Then what a mockery is here ! Foolish man, lay down thy 
offering, go thy way, become reconciled to thy brother, and then 
come and offer thy offering. 

■ — In the language of Thomas Jefferson : " Can the liberties of 
a nation be sure when we remove their only firm basis, a con- 
viction in the minds of the people, that these liberties are the 
gift of God ? that they are not to be violated but with his 
wrath ? Indeed, I tiemble for my country, when I reflect that 
God is just ; that his justice cannot sleep for ever ; that a revolu- 
tion of the wheel of fortune, a change of situation, is among 
possible events ; that it may become probable by supernatural 
interference ! The Almighty has no attribute which can take 
side with us in that event." And shall these things be ? 'Tis 
fit that he should chide who bears the shame ! How long, my 
own, my native land, shall thy exiled sons dare to raise their 
voice only in a land of strangeis, in behalf of thy best inter- 
ests — the cause of reason, religion, and humanity ? 

But ye philanthropists, if so ye term yourselves — whether 
real or feigned, I care not — leave us to ourselves. Give opinion 
full scope ; examine, scrutinize, condemn, but let us alone. 
Know ye not yet the human heart? It has its affections, but it 
has its jealousies and its revenge, too ! But, if you attempt to 
snatch justice from our arms — our destined bride, lovely maid 
of every perfection — we will plunge the assassin's dagger to her 
heart — to be mourned by her followers as well as by her de- 
stroyers ! 

" Leave us to ourselves," should be the motto of our repul ilic, 
the first principle of national legislation. Not license to lawless- 
ness and crime ; not that liberty which is so often shouted forth 
without meaning — defiance of wholesome laws and their severe 
and rigid execution. But let us alone — let us exercise reason 
and public opinioir as regards our temporal interests as well as 
our immortal welfare. 

If we come to honor Washington to-day, to sanction his prin- 
ciples, w^hich have been approved in times past, I cannot forbear 
pressing upon the minds of my audience, from various parts of 
the Union, the necessity to concede something to public opinion 



ADDRESS. 43 

in the construction of our federal leag^ue ; to be indulgent to one 
another. If you do not, my countrymen, I very much fear that 
this, the first centennial celebration of the birth of Washington, 
will be the last, on which a mighty nation will have met. 

It is a principle generally admitted, among politicians, that 
the most despotic government in peace, is the most efficient in 
war, and the reverse. This principle applied to us admits of 
much limitation. If we war with foreigners, and all united, I 
venture to say, we are tlie most powerful nation on earth, com- 
paring our physical resources ; for we war not for a change of 
masters, but for ourselves — for freedom. But, if we war with 
each other, which God forbid, we are the weakest nation in ex- 
istence ; because we are the farthest removed from executive 
influence ; more subject to individual will. Our strength is in 
public opinion, in unanimity. We revolt on the most favora- 
iDle circumstances. No ignominious death of traitors awaits us ; 
defeat, at worst, is but an unwilling marriage with a haughty, 
but yet loving lord. States come to the contest, armed, provid- 
ed, unanimous ; fighting ostensibly under the banner of the 
constitution, if not in supposable cases, in the real spirit of our 
federal league. 

I would not speak lightly of the constitution of America ; 
long may it exist to the honor of its framers, and the greater 
glory of those who support it well ; but I should not deem it safe 
to appeal to the letter of any copy, in defiance of the great 
original, written in the breast of every American. 

It needs not the eye of divination to see that differences of in- 
terest will naturally arise in this vast extent of territory. Wash- 
ington saw it ; we see it. Let us not flatter ourselves that these 
differences will be merged by the revolution of time, or the in- 
crease of space. While I now speak, a voice is heard imploring 
concession, founded upon claims, warmly and conscientiously 
supported — no matter whether they be real or imaginary. 

In the political arena the glove is already thrown down ; the 
great northern and southern champions* stand in sullen defi- 
ance ; bristling crests are seen extending to the extreme verge 
of the lists ; the mystery of intense feeling pervades the hosts ; 
" non tunrultus, non quies : quale magni metus, et magnaj irse 
silentium est." 

• Webster and Ilayne. 



44 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

My countrymen, this must not be ; the issues are too great to 
depend upon the fall of one man. 'Tis yours — you, the people 
of the United States — to look well to it ! 

The warning voice of Cassandra is abroad ! May not a 
blinded people rest secure in disbelief and derision, till the birth- 
right left us by our Washington is lost ! till we shall be aroused 
by the rushing ruins of a once " glorious Union ! " 



SPEECH 



In the House of Representatives of Kentucky, upon the bill " to take the sense 
of the people of this Commonwealth, as to the propriety of calling a Con- 
vention." 1835-6. 

Mr. Speaker, — In discussing a subject of such interest to 
society, as a change, or it may be, the destruction of the charter 
of their hberties, I shall not urge those arguments calculated to 
excite our sympathies and obscure our judgment. I pass over, 
then, the difficulties into which we would plunge those who now 
hold offices under our government, by withdrawing from them 
the public trusts, in the faithful discharge of which they have 
grown old, and who are now perhaps too far advanced in life 
to obtain a livelihood for themselves and families by other pur- 
suits. I pass over the probability that our system of internal 
improv^ements so lately, yet so auspiciously, commenced — when 
Kentucky seems to be just shaking off the lethargy which has 
so long prostrated her — would be retarded, perhaps stayed for ever. 
I omit to mention the bitterness of party strife which the passage 
of this bill must bring home to every fire-side, when the elements 
of society are dissolved, and pohtical theories are mingled with 
personal vituperation and insult. Such considerations as these 
should be lost sight of, when a grave assembly are about to pass 
judgment upon the constitution of their country. 

I, sir, when I weigh the arguments of gentlemen upon this 
floor, and elsewhere among the connnunity at large, can see 
but two leading designs in calling a convention. They are the 
emancipation of our slaves, and the destruction of the indepen- 
dence of the judiciary department of this government. For I 
cannot believe that the movers of this project are of so humble 
and contemptible an ambition, as to disturb the very elements of 
society for the purpose of ridding themselves of an odious magis- 
trate, or venting their spleen upon a peculating constable. I 
think I do not flatter the gentlemen over the way, when I say 
for them that they would scorn such an imputation. 

First, then, the slave question — and I address myself to the 



46 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

advocates of emancipation. Is this a time — when the arm of 
the law is averted, and deeds of violence go unredressed through- 
out the land, when a horde of fanatical incendiaries are spring- 
ing up in the North, threatening to spread fire and blood through 
our once secure and happy homes? — I ask, is this a time 
to deliberately dispose of a question which involves the political 
rights of master and slave — the liberties — it may be the lives 
of one or both parties ? I am bound to confess that there was 
a time when I favored gradual emancipation. Having had 
some experience of the state of society in slaveholding and non- 
slaveholding communities, to say nothing of the moral and 
social condition, in a political point of view, I am candid in 
saying that the free states have largely the advantage. I cannot 
as a statesman, shut my eyes to the industry, ingenuity, num- 
bers, and wealth which are displaying themselves in adjoining 
states; nor can I look with indifference to that time when 
argument fails and arms decide the fate of nations. Such con- 
siderations, sir, belong to the past, not to the present. When I 
see a spirit of dictation and interference rising in the North — 
where we looked for amity and aid ; when I hear the genius 
of discord speaking in threatening accents in the federal legisla- 
ture, to whose halls I looked for concession, co-operation, and 
effectual assistance ; when I behold the lame and feeble effort 
of the Colonization Society striking off one hydra's head, 
whilst a thousand spring up in its stead, I almost cease to hope 
• — I almost giv^e way to the belief that slavery must continue to 
exist till, like some uneradicable disease, it disappears with the 
body that gave it being. 

What, Mr. Speaker, is the other great end which the advo- 
cates of this bill propose? It is to disturb the sources of justice, 
and batter down the walls of constitutional responsibility. 
This is no novel project — the seeds of anarchy, deception, and 
misrule, which were buried some twelve years since, which were 
trodden under foot and forgot, have been germinating, and 
are now assuming a new and luxuriating growth, and if 
unchecked, will be as fruitful of discord and evil as the most 
ambitious and restless spirits could desire. The advocates of 
this bill go for electing all the officers of the government — the 
legislature, the judiciary, and the executive departments are to 
be brought all under the control of the popular will. The. -sena- 
torial term of office is to be shortened, the judges, clerks^. sheriffs, 



SPEECH. 47 

constables, jailors, hangmen, and grave-diggers are to be elected 
annually, biennially, or for a longer term of years. All the 
officers of the government, from the highest to the lowest, are 
to be chosen at the polls ; the country must be harassed from 
day to day, and from year to year, with the intrigue, strife, 
electioneering, and disgusting struggle of this horde of office- 
seekers : hungering like Egyptian locusts, even for the stunted 
leaf that vegetates upon the treasury walls. These, sir, are 
minor evils which fade away from the vision, when we look at 
the insecurity, confusion and injustice which must result from 
such a system. Property, life, reputation and liberty are all at 
the mercy of an excited multitude. The dominating party 
pervades the halls of legislation, the courts, and the fireside ; 
before the excited mind can cool, some cruel act of injustice has 
been done which time may reveal, but can never remedy. 
Experience is perfect and full upon this subject. The ancient 
republics, England, all Europe, are full of the deplorable injus- 
tice done by the popular will, unchecked by wholesome laws 
and constitutional restraint. There is one instance within the 
memory of many now in this house, more horrible than all in 
times past. Look at France, that people who fought under the 
same flag with Washington, who cauglit the spirit of liberty on 
the American shore, bore it across the Atlantic, and j)lanted her 
image upon the throne of her antiquated kings. AV'hat did 
France, republican, democratic France? She made her judges 
innnediately dependent on the popular will — she " afraid to trust 
the people?" No, sir, the blood of her best citizens which 
flooded her streets — the cries of murdered women and children — 
the pale and mute language of despair stamped upon the inno- 
cent faces of the young and beautiful — the nuitual distrust, 
accusation and death — bear witness that she did not " fear to 
trust the people." 

The Hon. Gentleman (from Hardin) answers this argument by 
rejoicing that he is in Kentucky, not in France — among freemen, 
not slaves — not a Frenchman, butaKentuckian. I, too, rejoice 
that I am a freeman, a Kentuckian : and as I am a freeman 
and a Kentuckian, the heir of a controlled and constitutional 
liberty, and not a slave, or a Frenchman, I therefore abhor the 
policy of France, and call upon my countrymen to reject and 
put their seal of eternal disapprobation upon doctrines which 
lead to despotism, slavery, and death. 



48 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

I have said, that I did fear to trust the people to choose their 
judges^ and I am warned that I stand upon dangerous ground. 
The heroes of our revohition, the sages of our federal constitu- 
tion — Washington, Adams, Hamilton, Jefferson, and a host of 
the advocates of equality, of universal suffrage, and republican 
liberty — believed that the judges should not be elected by the 
people, and that the Senate should not be broken down, and all 
the strength of the government subject to popular impulse. The 
experience of more than half a century, the liberties we now en- 
joy, and the privilege by which I now stand here to defend their 
doctrines and enforce what they and I believe to be republican 
principles, prove that they were worthy of the trust which the 
destiny of nations deposited in their hands. 

I am warned, sir, against the advocacy of measures upon this 
floor, which gentlemen conceive are too unpopular elsewhere ; 
and I am told that Webster and Calhoun are now prostrate on 
account of speculative opinions, against which this people have 
decided. 

I do not conceive that I am called upon to say how far the 
Hon. Gentleman, holding the position which he does, is justifiable 
in alluding to such names in such a manner: nor do I conceive 
myself necessitated to defend such names. But I do say, sir, 
that if, by the advocacy of truth, and what I believe to be the 
best interests of a free people, I am cut off from the popular ap- 
probation, and commit political suicide, I thank the gentleman 
for tlie honorable interment to which he has assigned me. For 
I had rather be remembered with Webster and Calhoun, than to 
be associated with the most successful dejnogogue, feeding upon 
the breath of applause caught from a deluded and self-destroy- 
ing people. 

The gentleman last up, (from Morgan) has undertaken to 
construe to this house what he believes to be the tenor of my 
argument, and asserts that I " distrust the capability of the peo- 
ple for self-government." No, sir, I answer that assertion now, 
and I hope for ever. It is such persons as we have heard upon 
this floor, who appeal to the worst passions, who excite the 
" poor " against the " rich," the " mountains " against the " val- 
leys," w^ho are for ever flattering the people for their own aggran- 
dizement, and watching the tide of human misfortunes, distress, 
and confusion, for the purpose of running into power. These, sir, 
are demagogues I do distrust. I believe that the people are the 



SPEECH. 49 

proper depositaries of all power — but I believe also that there 
should be constitutional restraints for its wholesome exercise. 

I do not fall short of gentlemen in my confidence in republican 
governments. I go farther — that I shall be the last to give up 
my confidence in the capacity of the people for self-government. 
But I do most solemnly avow to this house, that if ever this peo- 
ple cease to be free, and are compelled to throw themselves into 
the hands of a self-constituted chief or military despot — no man 
will have contributed more to produce so lamentable a result 
than he who continues to stimulate the passions of the multitude, 
till they shall have thrown off all constitutional restraints, and 
amalgamated all the elements of government into one uncon- 
trollable will. 

I may be thought, sir, to have taken too excited a view of this 
subject : it may be so. I feel that this question should be met 
in the outset ; ground once lost can never be recovered. Your 
vote here to-day may decide the question, whether our constitu- 
tion shall ])e sustained or lost, And I beg gentlemen that if they 
shall have a shadow of doubt concerning the propriety of calling 
a convention, to vote against the bill : return to your constituents, 
convince them, if possible, of the impropriety of the measure, 
and, should you at last fail to convince, leave it to more willing 
hands to strike a blow at the constitution of your country, which 
neither your consciences nor judgments can approve. For 
myself I shall go against it, and should such a course shut me 
off from the confidence of my constituents, and should 1 never 
again be allowed to taste the sweets of popular applause, I shall 
carry into retirement and obscurity, the proud and imperishable 
consciousness of having used my every effort for the preserva- 
tion of human—" republican " — liberty. 



SPEECH 

On the bill conferring Banking Privileges upon the Charleston, Cincinnati, 
and Louisville Railroad Company, before the Committee of the whole, in the 
House of Representatives of Kentucky, 1837-38. 

Mr. C. spoke in opposition to the bill, as follows : 

Mr. Chairman,— The American people have been from the 
beginning jealous of incorporated institutions. Kentucky, of all 
the states in this union, has had most fatal experience of the 
evil influence of bank corporations. While I now speak, there 
is one voice coming up from all classes and all parties of our 
sagacious countrymen, attributing the prostration of our trade 
and business, the wnde-spread bankruptcy of our citizens, and 
the derangement of the currency, to an over-issue of bank paper 
— to a redundancy of bank capital. Our banks, in common 
with others, have suspended specie payments. The anxieties 
of our whole people ; the threatened suits, executions, and 
demands for specie ; the wide-spread panic and fearful appre- 
hension of other and unforeseen evils — all, call for whatever of 
firmness and judgment and patriotism the council of our state 
may possess, to sustain our own banks, and to restore a currency 
convertible into specie at the will of the holder. At this crisis, 
we are gravely asked to lend our aid in bringing into existence 
a bank with twelve million dollars of capital, capable of throw- 
ing into circulation twenty-four million dollars of paper, which 
it can refuse to redeem without forfeiting^ or even impairing 
its corporate powers. 

The bill asks, that four million dollars of bank paper be 
admitted into our own state — our bank injured state ! 

I for one, I am not prepared to grant it. Before I disappoint 
the just expectations of the people, hazard the healthful exist- 
ence of our state institutions, bestow upon an alien and irre- 
sponsible directory the control of our finances, I ask myself 
what remuneration my state is to receive in turn ? Shall I be 
told, grant the bank charter, and the railroad will be made from 
Charleston to Lexington, Kentucky? I deny the proposition. 
The bill provides, that when the company shall have subscribed 



SPEECH. 51 

three million dollars, the bank shall go into existence ; that 
when the road shall have been built to the southern border of 
Kentucky, the bank capital may be increased to nine million 
dollars, and have corporate powers for thirty-one years. Thus 
we may have a bank issuing eighteen million dollars of notes, 
dealing in exchange and discount to an unlimited extent ; hold- 
ing real estate to the amount of twenty-seven million dollars, 
dividing annually (if it makes no more even than our banks, 
eight per cent, per annum), seven hundred and twenty thousand 
dollars — nearly a million of dollars ; capable of raising and 
depressing at will the prices of our property ; under the control 
of a directory at Charleston, South Carolina, whose interest it 
is to lower the price of live stock, having the entire power of 
removing the directors in this state, and of withdrawing the 
capital at will, without being compelled to expend one dollar, 
or make one foot of road, in Kentucky. 

Our state has begun a system of internal improvements, the 
progress and completion of which depend upon the sale of state 
scrip or bonds ; the sale of those bonds depends upon the punc- 
tuality with which the interest is paid ; to meet the payment of 
that interest the state has formed a sinking fund, the means of 
which consist mostly in the dividends of the stock she holds in 
our banks. That part of the stock which the state holds in the 
banks was paid in bonds, bearing interest of five per cent, per 
annum : but the banks are bound to pay the state, dividends as 
the other stockholders, being about eight per cent, per annum; 
thus leaving the commonwealth a clear gain of three per cent, 
per annum, making during the last fiscal year about sixty thou- 
sand dollars. Now, admit this railroad bank into competition 
with our banks, reduce their dividends to five per cent, per 
annum, and you lose the three per cent, excess ; you lose the 
sixty thousand dollars, destroy the sinking fund, injure our 
credit abroad, violate the faith of the state, hazard the whole 
system of internal improvement, merely to enrich a foreign 
corporation ! 

Shall T be told, that our stock drivers require some medium 
which will relieve them from the excessive rate of exchange now 
demanded by the banks of Kentucky and South Carolina ! Let 
us see if the evils I have enumerated are counterbalanced by 
any saving in exchange. The notes issued at the Charleston 
bank are not redeemable at the branch in Kentucky, and the 



52 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

notes of the Kentucky branch not made payable at Charleston ; 
thus the raihoad bank has it as much in its power to demand 
a premium for exchange upon its own notes, as the present 
banks of Kentucky and South Carohna have to ask a premium 
upon their notes. 

But for argument sake, I will go so far as to grant that the 
railroad bank charges nothing, and that our banks charge five 
per cent, premium upon bills of exchange on Charleston. What 
then shall we gain or lose in dollars and cents ? The amount 
of stock which passed the Cumberland ford during the year 
1835, which may be taken as an average year, was six thousand 
six hundred and sixty-seven horses and mules, two thousand 
four hundred and eighty-five beeves, sixty-nine thousand one 
hundred and eighty-seven hogs, two thousand eight hundred 
and eighty-seven shoats, and one thousand three hundred and 
twenty sheep. Now, the custom of this country is to pay for 
stock on the return from market with the proceeds of the sales, 
and of course bills of exchange are w^anted merely to procure 
expense money : suppose each horse and mule and beef to cost 
twelve dollars per head, each hog four dollars per head, and 
each shoat and sheep two dollars per head, to carry them to 
market, and we have nineteen thousand seven hundred and 
forty-nine dollars and thirty cents, the premium at the rate of 
five per cent, upon three hundred and ninety-four thousand nine 
hundred and eighty-six dollars, the total amount borrowed. 
Suppose one-third of the stock to come from Ohio, Illinois, 
Indiana, and Missouri, and you leave for Kentucky thirteen 
thousand one hundred and sixty-six dollars twenty cents ; but 
grant that half of the drovers use borrowed capital for expense 
money, and w^e have only the contemptible sum of six thousand 
five hundred and eighty-three dollars ten cents paid by all Ken- 
tucky for exchange. But to cover all quibbles, double the sum, 
and there is only thirteen thousand one hundred and sixty-six 
dollars twenty cents paid in exchange to our own banks — to our 
own citizens. To relieve the good citizens of this common- 
wealth of this evil — this burden, the friends of this bill propose 
to introduce two million dollars of foreign capital, dividing, and 
carrying out of this state for ever, eight per cent., one hundred 
and sixty thousand dollars per annum. Subtract the thirteen 
thousand one hundred and sixty-six dollars twenty cents, and 
you leave a total loss to the state of Kentucky of one hundred 



■SPEECH. 53 

and forty-three thousand eight hundred and thirty-three dollars 
eighty cents per annum. Save me from such economy ! I can- 
not, to use the language of a certain British orator, boast of 
bringing a miserable pepper-corn into the treasury at the loss of 
a whole continent ! 

I object to the bill because it wars against a national bank. 
You enlist all in these four states, who may hold stock in this 
bank, through direct and personal interest, against a national 
bank. 

And who can limit the power of this large moneyed corpora- 
tion over the political will of all the south and southwestern 
states ? I shall not give my sanction to this silent and gradual 
influence, which strips the general government of one of its most 
salutary powers, that of regulating the commerce of these twenty- 
six states, by an equal and uniform currency — a uniform pajper 
currency ; for such is necessary to the high-wrought commercial 
and social intercourse of the civilized nations. Let me not be 
told that by a national bank I would increase the evils of foreign 
influence and a redundant paper medium. Give us a bank, in 
which the states may hold stock proportionate to their repre- 
sentation in congress, with directories controlled in part by the 
states ; with a capital sufficient to effect foreign and domestic 
exchanges — all under the supervision of our national represen- 
tatives — and you reduce the rates of exchange, free us from a 
mean dependence upon irresponsible state corporations, drive in 
the spurious issues from local institutions, and restore us to a 
convertible paper currency. Gentlemen tell us that it is too late 
to talk of a national bank. Others may doubt, and falter, and 
make terms with the enemy ; but for my single self I shall hold 
out for the best interests and most ardent wishes of this people. 
I shall ever struggle, till the union be strengthened by the resto- 
ration of one of its most legitimate and appropriate powers — 
till our country, by its financial skill, shall be reinstated in the 
admiration of all nations. 

I op{)ose this bill because it is anti-national in its conception 
and in its consequences. I will not, Mr. Chairman, cast any 
reflections upon the motives of any man or set of men in or out 
of this house ; but when it is proposed to give to a foreign 
directory the control of the finances and the politics of my own 
state, I will not shut my eyes to the past, nor turn away my 
face from the signs of the future ; I shall speak with the free- 



54 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

dom of history — from her only do I fear rebuke. There is a 
class of politicians who have solemnly declared themselves at 
war with the system of American manufacture, sustained by 
Kentucky, at some sacrifice, for the good of this whole nation. 
There are men who have avowed themselves inimical to a sys- 
tem of national internal improvements ; casting from them 
those ever-during bonds which compress us by intercourse, by 
association, and by diminished space, into one consolidated 
people. There are men who have deliberately set at defiance 
the decreed laws of these states, and declared eternal war against 
their enforcement. There are men who have succeeded in pros- 
trating the best bank circulation known among any people; 
and who now refuse the aid of the general government to sustain, 
by the deposit of specie, our state banks— ^our last resource ! 
There are men who declare in convention that they will throw 
off a " servile dependence " upon the eastern cities of this union, 
and call upon the soutl*rn citizens of these states to import, at 
a sacrifice, from foreign and alien merchants, kingly subjects, 
rather than sustain the freemen of our common country. They 
propose to import goods for the south and southwestern states — 
to transplant New York to Charleston — whilst they are now 
compelled to buy of that same New York, the daily clothing for 
the sons and daughters of their ocean city. There are men 
whose names in national history will not be the most illustrious 
— whose prospects of promotion to national honor are not the 
most flattering. These are the men who are now asking from 
the state of Kentucky, the grant and uncontrollable exercise of 
alj, those powers which they consider "monstrous" and 
" dangerous " in the hands of our representatives in congress 
assembled ! 

They are now agitating the slave question ; that question 
which of all others is most terrible to the hopes of this union. 
Give them this " monstrous moneyed power," and do you not 
tempt, do you not precipitate that crisis, to which all these things 
in long and unbroken succession fatally lead — when the " north" 
and "south" shall be far severed, like the names they bear, 
never again to unite ? I admire the south ; I love her feelings 
of independence ; I commend her spirit of enterprise and self- 
elevation ; but I must stop here ; my courtly complacency will 
carry me no farther ; I cannot join in enslaving my own state ! 
in prostrating the general government ! in the dissolution of the 



SPEECH. 55 

union ! While the union lasts — amid these fertile verdant 
fields, these ever-flowing rivers, these stately groves, this genial 
healthful clirae — this old Kentucky land ; hallowed by the 
blood of our sires ; endeared by the beauty of her daughters ; 
illustrious by the valor and eloquence of her sons ; the centre 
of a most glorious empire ; guarded by a cordon of States gar- 
risoned by freemen ; girt round by the rising and setting seas j 
we are the most blessed of all people. Let the union be dis- 
solved — let that line be drawn, where be drawn it must — and 
we are a border state : in time of peace with no outlet to the 
ocean, the highway of nations, a miserable dependency. In 
time of war, the battle-ground of more than Indian warfare, of 
civil strife and indiscriminate slaughter ! When, w'orse than 
Spanish provinces, we shall contend not for glory and renown : 
but like the aborigines of old, for a contemptible life and misera- 
ble subsistence ! Let me not see it ! Among those proud courts 
and lordly coteries of Europe's pride, where fifty years ago we 
were regarded as petty provinces, unknown to ears polite, let 
me go forth great in the name of an American citizen. Let me 
j)oint them to our statesmen, and the laws and governments of 
their creation, the rapid advance of political science, the monu- 
ments of their fame, now the study of all Europe. Let them 
look at our rapidly increasing and happy population ; see our 
canals, and turnpikes, and railroads, stretching over more space 
than combined Britain and Europe have reached by the same 
means. Let them send their philanthropists to learn of our 
penitentiary systems, our schools, and our civil institutions. Let 
them behold our skill in machinery, in steamboat and ship 
building — hail the most gallant ship that breasts the mountain 
wave, and she shall wave from her flagstaff the stars and 
stripes. These are the images which I cherish ; this the nation 
which I honor ; and never will I throw one pebble in her track 
to jostle the footsteps of her glorious march ! 

I oppose the bill because we have denied to the United States 
Bank of Pennsylvania, what we now propose to confer upon a 
Charleston bank. When I had the honor, two winters ago, to 
hold a scat in this Hovise, there came from the citizens of 
Louisville, the emporium of our own commerce, the pride of 
our own state, a petition signed by many and distinguished 
names, praying that a branch of the United States Bank of 
Pennsylvania be admitted into our borders. A committee of 



56 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

thirteen, one from each congressional district, was appointed to 
consider it. That committee decided mianimously against the 
admission, and the House unanimously sustained their decision. 
The advocates of this bill were then found voting with me. 
No new light has been shed upon my mind. The considera- 
tions which influenced me to vote against that, impel me now 
to vote against this bill. If it was not necessary, in order to 
regulate exchanges with the east, that place where three-fourths 
of our commerce is carried on, then to admit a foreign bank 
into our border, it is not necessary now, for the same purpose, 
to admit a bank from that place to which only one-fourth of 
our commerce is extended. 

If it was bad policy to admit foreign influence then from that 
quarter, it is worse policy to admit it now from this quarter. 
If I dislike Hartford Conventionism* much, I hate Nullification 
more. I am willing to yield to both parties the best of motives ; 
I will put myself under the influence of neither. If my own 
state was contaminated by the wiported dicta of '98, the " Ken- 
tucky resolutions," I would lustrate her by the legislation of '38, 
by guarding against a like result ! I will join roads and hold 
friendly intercourse with both ; I will enter into entangling 
alhances with neither. 

I was for the road in the session of '35-36, when the present! 
advocates of this charter were against it. I am still for it. We 
are told by the report of the Board of Directors that each state 
is expected to make its own road within its own border ; we 
are told now by the letter of the President of the Board of 
Directors, lying on your table, that we must grant the bank 
charter and make our own road also. I thank him for his 
candor : it relieves the advocates of this bill of many a long 
argument to prove the contrary, and the people of this common- 
wealth of many of their delusive hopes ! The admission is not 
only candid, but fair. When Kentucky is prepared to vote a 
tax of three or five millions of dollars to make this railroad to 
the southern border of the state, from Lexington or elsewhere, 
I am prepared to aid, as becomes a good and faithful citizen, to 

* Mr. Wickliffe, of Fayette, alluded to the partiality of Mr. C. for the east, 
the seat of Hartford Conventionism ; and deprecated Mr. C.'s allusions to the 
Nullification of the south, inasmuch aa Kentucky, by the resolutions of '98, 
was amenable to the same censure. 

t The Fayette delegation. 



SPEECH. 57 

the extent of my means in purse and mind. I wait to hear her 
voice. Till then I vote against this charter : because the bank 
does not aid the making of the road in our own state : because 
it increases the already too great irredeemable paper currency : 
because it is controlled by a directory at Charleston, capable of 
depressing the prices of our property, and influencing our politi- 
cal will by withdrawing the capital at pleasure : because it 
carries out of our state for ever, annually, thousands of dollars : 
because it injures the dividends of our own stockholders, for the 
benefit of aliens : because it decreases the dividend of the state 
stock, lowers the sinking fund, and thereby jeopardizes the 
whole internal improvement system of the state : because it 
would be granting to one portion of the union privileges which 
we have unanimously refused to another part of the same union : 
because it wars against a National Bank : because it is anti- 
union in its tendency and effects — giving the states powers 
which properly belong to congress only — and creating sectional 
in opposition to national interests. And lastly, because my 
constituents have given me no intimation that I should do this 
thing. I hope the house will vote with me against the bill. 



SPEECH, 

In the House of Representatives of Kentucky, January, 1841, upon the law of 
1833, " To prohibit the importation of slaves into this State." The House 
being in Committee of the Whole, Mr. C, of Fayette, having the floor, said: 

Mr. Chairman: — The result of your deliberations upon this 
bill must affect the destiny of this state, and perhaps that of the 
Union itself. Pamphlets and speeches have gone forth among 
the whole people, and all the leading journals of the state have 
taken ground upon one side or the other. If I were pleading 
my own cause only, however much I might hazard in the re- 
sult, I should ask your attention with diffidence. But I stand 
up here in behalf of a whole people. Your state, yourselves, 
your posterity, are so nearly concerned as to demand a patient 
hearing and an impartial determination. 

The gentleman from Breckenridge.* and the gentleman from 
Louisville, have done me the honor to allude to me personally, 
and to the late canvass in my county. And, although they 
have done so in a manner most complimentary to myself, yet to 
me it is a source of regret, because my opponents are not here to 
answer what I have to say. I shall therefore speak of them in 
terms of scrupulous respect. The influences which were ar- 
rayed against me were indeed great. A young man, in intellect 
at least, my equal, with all the advantages of great wealth and 
thorough education ; in the country of his nativity, and among 
the associates of his childhood and youth ; the son of an old 
politician, who had done some service in the commonwealth, 
and whose legal attainments at all events had no small consid- 
eration in the public estimation, was my opponent. I, on the 
contrary, was a new comer. If I bore with me any reputation 
for ability it must have been, of necessity, but little ; whilst if I 
had any social qualities, my limited associations barred their in- 
fluence. It was, then, the policy and the justice of the cause I 
advocated, which, in a county of ten thousand slaves, sustained 
me triumphantly.^/' The discussion of this subject is deprecated 

* Mr. Calhoun, the ablest advocate of the repeal. 



SPEECH. 59 

here ; and so it was deprecated there. And by whom, in both 
instances ? By those who will not rest while this law stands ; 
who would claim a judgment against us by default ; who by 
bitter denunciation would drive us from our integrity. They 
beg the question, and ask us to be silent. They have demand- 
ed the repeal of this law for three years ; at every period the 
law has gained friends ; and yet they dare tell us " the people " 
require its repeal. 

Epithets strike no terror into my spirit ; denunciation shall not 
silence me. It has been said that money is power, that know- 
ledge is power ; but more powerful than both these combined 
is truth. She is the high priestess of republican liberty. Let 
me ever worship at her shrine ; let my voice be lifted up for ever 
in her cause. 
/ Shall the slaves of our State be increased ? If slavery be a 
I •' blessing,'' by all means repeal this law. But, if it be an evil, as 
\ I hold — as Jefferson held, as held Madison, and Washington, and / 
Henry, and all the illustrious statesmen of the world, since se- ^' 
•venteen hundred and seventy-six to the present time — then you 
jdare not touch that law, which stands like a wall of adamant, 
' shielding our homes, and all that makes that name most sacred, 
from more than all the calamities that ever barbarian invaders 
inflicted upon a conquered people. 

The gentleman from Breckenridge avows slavery to be " a 
blessing," and undertakes, by scripture, to hallow it with the 
sanction of Deity. This is strange doctrine to be heard in any 
country ; but to urge it here among Kentuckians, is not only 
strange but monstrous. I utterly dissent from the argument ; I op- 
pose iton every principle of truth and expediency, now and forever. 
It saps the foundation of all liberty. If you sanction it now, 
when and to what shall you appeal when the purple and the 
sword are arrayed against you ? No : let not gentlemen, in 
their blind zeal to make slavery perpetual, cleave down the ban- 
ner under which our forefathers fought and triumphed; the bar- 
rier against the oppressor of all lands, that " all men are created 
free and equaf'' The Divine right of kings has fallen before 
the advance of civilization ; the most loyal sticklers for royalty 
or despotism, speak now only of the historical right of princes 
to rule. Can it be that this doctrine shall have fallen only to 
give place to its more monstrous counterpart, the divine right of 
slavery ? I understand our religion to leave the form of go- 



60 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

vernment, and the municipal institutions of nations untouched. 
Nay, sir, the Savior of men disclaimed the design to interfere 
with them. " Give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's." 
was his doctrine. It is also my doctrine. I am no reformer of 
governments. I leave slavery where I found it. It is not a 
matter of conscience with me ; I press it not upon the con- 
sciences of others ; "let him who formed the heart judge of it 
alone." I admit, with the gentleman, the antiquity of slavery 
that it has existed from time immemorial to the present day ; 
yet, sir, in all that time I find nothing to commend it as a source 
of wealth, of glory, or of humanity. Its first mention is in Ge- 
nesis, where Isaac subjects Esau to Jacob. Esau rose up to 
slay his brother, and Jacob was forced to flee from his country. 
Evil in the beginning, as it is now. The Jews were enslaved 
by Pharaoh in Egypt ; what, again, were the consequences ? 
In the metaphorical language of the historian, unheard of 
^^ plagues ^^ came upon the Egyptians, which were terminated 
only by the entire destruction of Pharaoh's host in the Red Sea. 
Slave-holding Jerusalem was destroyed ; and the Jews led cap- 
tive by Nebuchadnezzar and held in bondage in the Assyrian 
empire. What to her, in turn, was the result ? Glory, and do- 
minion, and safety ? No, sir ; these slaves were the cause of tlie 
destruction of Babylon, and the utter ruin of the empire. The 
inspired writers imputed it to a judgment for their oppression of 
God's people. The profane agree in the same result ; whilst it 
would require no great sagacity to discover, that slavery, by the 
universal and immutable laws of nature, was a cause adequate 
to the result. It is true, that Cyrus and Darius turned aside the 
Euphrates, and entered through the dry channel beneath the 
walls into the city ; but it was by treachery only that they could 
pass the massive gates that blocked the streets that led from the 
river to the palace. The hand writing upon the wall was He- 
hrcui : Daniel, the Hebreiv, only could interpret it to the doomed 
Belshazzar ! Effeminacy, and luxury, had caused a slave to 
rule over that once powerful and proud people. They were be- 
trayed in the hour of revelry and self-confidence; they were de- 
stroyed in a night ; and Daniel, the Jew and the slave, was 
made vice-regent, under Cyrus, over all the shattered provinces 
of a once glorious empire. Thus passed away, without a strug- 
gle, most impotently and for ever, leaving no vestige behind, the 
most splendid city the world has seen. I am gravely told, that 



SPEECH. 61 

in those countries of antiquity, where slavery existed, the human 
intellect reached its highest development. Yet did slavery exist 
in all countries at that time. How came it that a cause so 
general produced effects so limited ? No : the Roman and 
Grecian states were great in spite of slavery. The ancient his- 
torians say but little upon the subject of slavery ; perhaps they 
thought as some do now, that nothing should be said upon tlie 
subject of so "great a blessing." 

Yet, whenever we do hear of it, it is mentioned only in con- 
nexion with the evils of its sufferance — the desolation that for 
ever marks its progress. Plutarch and Thucydides tell us that 
during the reign of Archidamus, an earthquake threw Mount 
Taygetus upon Sparta and destroyed it ; their slaves, the He- 
lots — those natural enemies of their masters — immediately rose 
up and set upon the Lacedaemonians, and this proud and war- 
like people were forced to call in their rivals, the Athenians, to 
protect them from " domestic violence." We may judge of the 
prolonged and aggravated desolation of the war, when we learn 
that Ithome was besieged for ten years before it was taken. 

The effects of slavery upon the moral sensibilities of that peo- 
ple may be learned from the bloody " Kryptia," under which 
law two thousand slaves were massacred in a single night. Of 
course, the perpetrators of the deed escaped all inquiry or pun- 
ishment, the whole comnumity winkmg at the crime. The 
servile wars in the Roman empire are too well known to be 
dwelt upon at length. The Roman eagle, which never quailed 
before a foreign foe, was struck down by the slaves of Italy ; and 
whole consular armies were driven back in dismay and defeat. 
Slavery, then, certainly, formed no element of strength or great- 
ness. If the slaves, who were the principal cultivators of the 
soil, had been free yeomanry — a check upon the enervated city 
population, and a bulwark against barbarian invasion, Ca;sar 
jiiight not have been the master of Rome, and the Romans have 
yet been free. In modern times has slavery been more than of 
old the foundation of glory and civilization ? Why then have 
slave-holding Asia and Africa been subject to non-slave-holding 
Europe ; and South America, with all her slaves, remained sta- 
tionary, whilst free America has become the first among civil- 
ized nations ? Modern slavery, more marked and distinctive in 
its character than ancient, is so much the more terrible in its 
consequences. Formerly, the color being the same, it was easy 



62 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

to merge the slave into the freedman, and the freedman into the 
citizen. But now the difference of color is an eternal badge of 
former servitude and lasting infamy — ^an impassable barrier be- 
tween the two races. The massacre of St. Domingo and the 
insinrection of South Hampton, tell they of blessings, of power, 
and of peace ? The most overweening self-delusion cannot be 
deaf to the despairing energy with which all history cries 
aloud, that Deity has decreed that slavery cannot be the basis of 
civihzation and liberty.* If the Jewish history seemed to sanc- 
tion the institution of slavery — and what phasis of human ac- 
tion under the sun does it not sanction ? — there is nothing sure- 
ly, in the Christian religion, which regards slavery with eyes of 
peculiar approbation ! Those precepts upon which are said to 
rest " the law and the prophets," certainly, are not the founda- 
tions upon which involuntary servitude can intrench itself. 
The Virginia statute, of 1753, first making slaves, excepted 
Moors and Turks in alliance with the British king, and Chris- 
tians, and persons once free in a Christian land. Thus it 
seems that the founders of slavery in America so far respected 
the Christian religion, that in whatever land its banner was 
raised, it should be the shield of tlie weak and defenceless, 
the palladium of liberty to the vilest wretch who clothed him- 
self with the panoply of the Christian name. 

I have thus been compelled reluctantly to answer some of the 
arguments in favor of the Divine right of slavery. Reluctantly ; 
because I would have avoided the necessity of treating this sub- 
ject in its bearing upon conscience ; whilst, at the same time, I 
cannot silently acquiesce in this wresting the religion, of all 
others among men most favoring freedom and equality, to the 
unnatural sanction of the most despotic of all known govern- 
ments — ^that of master and slave. 

Christianity, then, was the beginning of the anti-slavery 
movement. Then came the American Revolution. One of the 
grounds of rebellion was tlie importation of slaves against the 
consent of the colonies. In 1778, Virginia imposed the penalty 
of one thousand pounds, and the forfeiture of the slave, upon 
the importer of any slave into that commonwealth. The act 
of 1785 makes some amendments to that of 1778. The act of 
1794 modifies the above acts, and introduces a clause of emanci- 

• See Gov. McDuffie's Inaugural Address : and R. Wickliffe's Sjjeech, 1840. 



SPEECH. 63 

pation. The act of 1798 again modifies, and carries out the 
prohibitory clause of the Constitution against foreign impor- 
tation. The act of 1815 imposes the penaUy of six hundred 
dollars upon the importation, and the oath. The law of 1833 
does but the same. 

Thus, from 1778 to the present time, has a law similar to this, 
with the same oath in all, been upon the statute books of our 
country. Such has been the policy of the slave states, from the 
Revolution to the present day. All the original states were slave 
states. Through the silent and safe operation of laws similar 
to this, has slavery gone south of Mason and Dixon's line. 
The importation of slaves is forbidden by the Constitution of 
Mississippi. Georgia makes the domestic slave trade felony— a 
penitentiary offence. The United States have made the foreign 
slave trade, since 1808, piracy : so, also, have Great Britain, 
Holland, and France. Although the African be a slave in Africa, 
yet is the trade in such slaves punished with death. Well may 
gentlemen become the advocates of the foreign slave trade, who 
go for the repeal of this law. 

Having thus attempted to repel the Divine right of slavery ; 
and to prove that this law, so far from being an innovation, and 
contrary to precedent, is in accordance with the settled policy of 
all our eminent men, from Washington down to the present time ; 
that it is in unison with the Christian religion, and the advance 
of civilization, and the moral sentiment of mankind ; 1 shall 
now vindicate its constitutionality. I might, indeed, pass on 
with the remark, that if the law be constitutional, I need not 
prove it ; but if it be unconstitutional, then the courts will 
declare it so, and it will be null and void. But since the honor- 
able chairman of Courts of Justice has dwelt upon it with some 
semblance of triumph, the house will pardon me, if I travel over 
the same ground. The argument, so far as the state constitu- 
tion is concerned, is so fully treated of in the pamphlets of 
myself, and the late member from Woodford, T. F. Marshall, 
in reply to R. Wickliffe's speech, now lying upon your tables, 
that 1 sliall briefly recapitulate it. 

We live under two constitutions, the Federal, and the State. 
In the Federal Constitution no powers are vested in the legisla- 
ture but those specifically named ; and such subordinate powers 
as are necessary to carry those named into effect. But in the 
State Constitution, all powers are in the legislature which are 



64 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

not expressly denied by the constitution, or given up specifically 
to the general government. In other words, the state legislatm-e 
has all the power which the people in convention would have, 
save the restrictions imposed by the written constitutions. Now 
look, j^r.?^, into the State Constitution and say, where is tiie re- 
strictive clause ; where is the mandate not to close the door to 
the importation of slaves ? Nowhere, save as to emigrants. 
About citizens nothing is said, and of course, nothing is excepted. 
The legislature can do as it pleases, so far as citizens are con- 
cerned : but how as to "emigrants" (immigrants).^ "They 
shall have no power to prevent emigrants to this state from 
bringing with them such persons as are deemed slaves by the 
laws of any one of the United States, so long as any person of 
the same age or description shall be continued in slavery by the 
laws of this state." Art. 7, Sec. 1. Now had the constitution 
stopped here, a doubt might well have arisen, whether we 
could have prevented emigrants from carrying on the slave trade 
under this clause. But the constitution comes to the rescue and 
declares that : " They shall have full power to prevent slaves 
being brought into this state as merchandize :" and puts this 
vexed question to rest for ever. Let no man who has the least 
regard for his legal reputation dare again disturb it, unless he 
would become the laughing stock of the very school boys who 
frequent our moot courts ; for even they deem it not debateable 
ground. The other minute arguments urged against the con- 
stitutionality of this law, under the State Constitution, such as 
" the oath," " the jury of the vicinage," and such like special 
pleading, I leave to those illustrious dialecticians who have 
wliilome filled the worthy county courts, with a most profound 
estimation of their legal acquirements, by making " confusion 
worse confounded," — or to that more acute class of logicians, 
skilled 

" To divide 
A hair 'tween North and Northeast side," 

whom the good natured Butler has made no less distinguished. 
Next : does the Constitution of the United States give any 
power to congress to permit, or to forbid the importation of slaves 
from one state to another? The argument under Art. 4, Sec. 2, 
Clause 1 : " The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all 
privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states," has 



SPEECH AGAINST SLAVE IMPORTATION. 65 

been abandoned by common consent : since by tliis law the 
citizens of the several states have not been denied any privilege 
allowed the citizens of Kentucky. I come, then, to the Art. 1, 
Sec. 8, Clause 3 : " The congress shall have power to regulate 
commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, 
and among the Indian tribes ;" so strongly urged by the honor- 
able chairman. I warn gentlemen of the dangerous ground 
upon which they entrench themselves. In their over-heated zeal 
to flood our state with the refuse slaves of all the south, they are 
advocating and strengthening the only principles on which the 
Abolitionists rest all their liopes of destroying the tenure of slaves^ 
Wherein do the Abolitionists differ from the great mass of the 
citizens of the non-slaveholding states : nay, from the whole 
civilized world ? The Abolitionists believe slavery to be an evil : 
so do all other men of free states. The Abohtionists do not 
believe slavery to be the foundation of civil liberty : all men of 
free states believe the same ; and despise the paradox. The 
Abolitionists contend that they have the right, under the Con- 
stitution, to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, to abol- 
ish the slave trade between the several states, and having the 
power, they are bound to carry that power into sudden execu- 
tion. Therein they diverge from the mass of their fellow-citizens 
of the free states, and begin for the first time to become danger- 
ous to the slave states. 

I, too, have been called an Abolitionist. I now challenge the 
gentlemen to the test. I stand opposed to the power of congress 
to interfeie with the slaves at all : they stand up for congress, 
and avow her power.^ The Abolitionists stand up for congress, 
and avow her power. Nay, if the gentleman's position be tena- 
ble, and he gain a triiunph over me, he will have proved, not 
only the power of congress to abolish slavery in tiie District of 
Columbia,* and the trade between the several states, but he will 
have also proved that congress has the power to declare that 
men caimot be subjects of property; and that the entire slave 
po|)ulation of this Union are free. For, under the same clause 
they have declared, whilst /egulating " commerce with foreign 
nations," that men are not and cannot be property, by making 
the foreign slave trade piracy. And the same language is used ; 

* The power to abolish slavery in the District exists, or rather slavery ceases, 
under another clause of thd United States Constitution. 1848. 
5 



66 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

and " among the several states." The conclusion follows in 
such fearful magnitude, that I need not utter it.* 

I pray gentlemen to pause, to reconsider, to retreat, to abandon 
this untenable position. Standing here in my place, one of the 
representatives of the independent state of Kentucky, I most 
solemnly protest against it. I declare war upon it. I am pre- 
pared to meet it with argument : I will meet it, if necessary, 
with the sword. 

The gentleman fiom Breckenridge says, that slaves are not 
persons, but merely "goods and chattels" — tobacco hogsheads 
and whisky barrels — subject to the same rules as other mer- 
chandise ! and inasmuch as no state can lay a tax upon the?n, 
Kentucky, by imposing a tax of six hundred dollars upon each 
slave imported, assumes the power of congress. He states 
further, that the northern states contended in convention that 
slaves should not be considered as persons ; and that the jour- 
nal of the convention will so show. It must be a bad cause 
indeed that can drive sensible, ambitious men to such absurdi- 
ties as these. Slaves not persons? And the free states so con- 
tended ? Indeed ! And suppose they did so contend, was the 
south so wanting in common sense as to admit it ? No : the 
contrary was agreed upon : it was determined that slaves ivere 
persons. That they were not, and should not stand upon the 
same footing as lard kegs and cider barrels : and because they 
were persons, they became the foundation of representation. 
What are they called in the Constitution ; Art. 1, Sec. 2, CI. 3 
" Three fifths of all other persons.'' Again, Art. 4, Sec. 3, CI. 3 
" No jierson held to service." Once more ; Art. 1, Sec. 9, CI. 5 
"The migration, or importation, of such persons''' In these 
three clauses, the only ones in the whole Constitution in which 
allusion to slaves is made at all, they are called pei^sons ! 
Shame on those hypocritical assertors of human liberty and 
equal rights who, believing slavery to be " a blessing, and the 
foundation of freedom," did not dare to put the word slave in 
that sacred instrument ! Slaves, then, are not mere things, but 
persons ; the foundation of representation : possessing all the 
feelings of humanity, and some of the privileges of free white 
citizens. 

* It needs no act of congress, nor of the state legislature : the slave, when- 
ever lie passes out of the bounds of a state by the consent of his master, is free, 
under the United States Constitution. 



SPEECH AGAINST SLAVE IMPORTATION. 67 

So far as they are suffered to be property at all, they stand 
alone, and sui generis : the objects of jealousy in the formation 
of the constitution. Congress, it is true, have entire control over 
the foreign slave trade, because all power over commerce abroad 
is denied to the states, and especially granted to congress ; and 
this power over slaves is acknowledged in Art. 1, Sec. 9, ch. 1 : 
" The migration or importation of such persons." But so soon 
as they pass the line of a state, the power of congress ceases ; 
you find no grant of power to interfere with the subject. On 
the contrary, the whole power of slavery is passed over as being 
in the states only. Slaves, then, are persons, and exclusively 
the subject of nmnicipal regulation by the states. I beg to read 
the decision of the supreme court of the United States in the 
case of the Mayor, Aldermen, and Commonalty of the city of 
New York, plaintiffs, vs. George Miller ; Peters' Reports, vol. 2, 
p. 102. The corporation of New York imposed certain penal- 
ties upon all masters of ships who failed to register the names 
of passengers, as prescribed by law ; and brought suit against the 
master of the brig Emily for the penalty incurred by the importa- 
tion of perso7is from a foreign port. Tiie defendant contended 
that under the clause of the constitution giving congress power to 
regulate commerce, the statute was unconstitutional. But the 
supreme court decided otherwise. I quote some parts of the 
decision. "This does not apply to persons. They are not 
subjects of connnerce. It is not only the right, but the boundcn 
and solemn duty of a state to advance the safety, happiness, and 
prosperity of its people, and to provide for its general welfare, 
by any and every act of legislation, which it may deem to be 
conducive to these ends ; when the powers over the particular 
subject, or the manner of its exercise, are not surrendered or 
restrained by the Constitution of the United States." " All 
those powers which relate merely to municipal legislation, or 
which may more properly be termed internal police, are not 
surrendered or restrained ; and consequently, in relation to these, 
the authority of a state is complete, unqualified, and exclusive.*' 
Perso7is are not the subjects of commerce; and not being 
imported goods, they do not fall within the reasoning founded 
upon (he construction of a power given to congress to regulate 
commerce, and the prohibition of the states from imposing a 
duty upon imported goods." Now, could a case be more appli- 
cable, possibly, to my position : that slaves are persons, subjects 
only of " municipal legislation :" that, there being in the Con- 



68 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M, CLAY. 

stitution of the United States no restraining' power, nor power 
surrendered, they of consequence come '• exclusively within the 
authority of the state :" and that the state is solemnly and in 
duty bound to advance the " safety and happiness, and prosperity 
of its people 1 " 

Thus, to sustain my ground, I have the implied intentions of 
the founders of the constitution ; the constitution itself ; the 
actual precedent of all the states of the union, from the begin- 
ning- till now. What more will gentlemen ask ? what more can I 
give ? The ablest jurists Kentucky can boast formed this law ; 
thanks to the simplicity of genius, the humblest of her sons is 
able to defend it against all the shafts that baffled ambition can 
hurl against it. 

Shall the law of 1832-'3 be repealed? Shall I not, says the 
advocate of repeal, be allowed to bring in a slave for my own 
use ? He might also ask, shall I not be allowed to bring in a 
slave from Africa, if I want ? Yet the laws of the union impose 
the penalty of death upon the foreign slave-trader. And the 
domestic slave-traders become, in the eyes of some, very respect- 
able gentlemen ! and native Kentuckians are denounced as 
abolitionists, and enemies of the country, because they oppose 
the same traffic which the United States denounced with death. 
And Avhile the President of the United States is calling on 
congress to break up more effectually the trade in African 
slaves, they are demanding no less earnestly that this state shall 
be impoverished, and desecrated, and brutalized, by an over- 
flow of the slough of slavery from the jails of all the South, to 
gratify those lovely specimens of human philanthropy — the pro- 
fessional slave-traders ! This indignation at restraint comes 
with a bad grace from those whose freedom is to trample with 
an iron heel upon the will of others. Laws are made for short- 
siglited selfishness to bend the wayward impulses of individual 
mind into subservience to the general good. 

The gentleman from Breckenridge tells us all men are 
governed by self-interest ; and that, disguise it as we may, 
selfishness Hes at the bottom of our own actions. — That I, 
the representative of a county with ten thousand slaves, favor 
this law because it makes them more valuable to the slave- 
holder ; but that the gentleman from Louisville is for the law, 
because they there have " tohite slaves" who are cheaper than 
blacks. I pass over the inconsistency of the argument. I con- 
fess I am moved by self-interest. But there are two kinds of 



SPEECH AGAINST SLAVE IMPORTATION. 69 

self-interest. One is a narrow, short-sighted, unstatesman-hke 
self-interest, which looks only to immediate consequences ; it 
subserves the grosser passions and appetites ; it is the basis of 
all mental, moral, and physical debasement ; it is the counselor 
of crime ; and its end is death. But there is another, enlarged, 
and far-seeing, and statesman-like self-interest, which looks not 
only to immediate, but to secondary and remote consequences ; 
it yields not to impulse nor to passion, but is subservient to 
reason ; it is the groundwork of virtue, wisdom, and immor- 
tality. In private life, it is the essence of morahty ; in the public 
man it is patriotism.* Fortunately these distinctions are not 
necessary to Fayette ; both interests impel her with concentrated 
force to sustain the law of 1833. For as the owner of ten 
thousand and twenty-six slaves, valued at three millions seven 
hundred and forty-three thousand one hundred and twenty- 
three dollars, there is none so bkfid as not to see that the free 
importation from abroad, by all the laws of trade, reduces the 
value of her liome slave population, in proportion to the increase 
from abroad ; while on the other hand, the far-reaching eye 
of patriotism will discover, in the increase of the whites over the 
blacks, security, wealth, and progressive greatness to the whole 
state. Again, if you draw the line between the slaveholder and 
the non-slaveiiolder, you will find that all the interests of both 
parties again unite in sustaining the law. For, if by the law 
the value of slave labor is increased, so also by the same law is 
the value of white labor ; for they are the same labor in the 
same market ; and the price of slave labor must influence ;;ro 
tanto the labor of the free. And as it is admitted that nine- 
tenths of the free whites of Kentucky are non-slaveholders 
and working men., will they ever be so blind and infatuated 
as to lower the price of labor, and starve their own famihes, to 
"diffuse the slave population over all the states," that southern 
nabobs may sleep in security, whilst their own children cry for 
bread and die ? It is the interest of all Kentucky, then, to 
decrease the number of slaves. Let us see if the law of '33 has 
had that effect : 



* That I was at this lime advocating the immediate interests of the slave- 
holder there can be no question, for they have sustained the law but sacrificed 
me. The avowal of these elevated sentiments, they well knew, would soon 
make me the acting enemy of slavery : for it laughs at all virtue ! At this time I 
was honest ; a sincere love of truth has since gradually placed me upou higher 
ground.— C '48. 



70 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

Table No. I. Showing the number of Whites and Blacks in Kentucky. 



CENSUS. 



1790. 
1800, 
1810, 
1820, 
1830, 
1840, 



Absolute increase of Whites and 
Blacks ill last ten years, from 
1830 to 1840, - 



WHITES. 



61,13.3 
179,871 
324,237 
434.644 
517,787 
587,017 



69,230 



Slaves and 
Free Blacks, 



11,944 
41,084 
82,274 
129,673 
170.130 
190,342 



Ratio op 

Blacks to 

Whites. 



1 to 5.11 
1 " 4..37 
1 " 3.94 
1 " 3.35 
1 " 3.04 
1 " 3.06 



Thus, from the admission of Kentucky into the union down 
to 1830, the slave population Readily increased upon the whites : 
but since 1843, and the last decade, in the third year of w^hich 
the law of 1833 began to act, the whites have increased on the 
blacks : making the absolute increase in ten years of three and 
forty hundreths whites to one black. 

Table No. II. Showing the rate of increase of the White, and. the combined free 
colored and slave population in Slave States in forty years : Florida and Dela- 
ware omitted. 





From 1790 


Blacks. 


Whites. 


STATES. 


TO 1830. 


InCRE. PR. CT 


InCRE. PR. CT. 


Maryland,* - - . . 


1790 


40.3794 


39..5204 


Virginia, .... 


" 


68.8820 


57.0406 


North Carolina, ... 


" 


151.2094 


64.0654 


South Carolina, - 


«' 


196.9117 


339.8112 


Georgia, .... 


" 


641.7470 


461.2185 


Kentucky, .... 


" 


1324.3972 


746.9844 


Tennessee, .... 


" 


3768.6607 


1573.5264 


Mississippi .... 


1800 


1702.7241 


1260.1661 


Louisiana, .... 


1810 


198.9656 


160.6773 


Missouri, .... 




609.2316 


566.3669 


Alabama, 


1820 


147.7971 


97.8347 


Arkansas, .... 




178.4534 


104.0782 


District of Columbia, - 


1800 


204.7181 


173.8228 


Total increase pr. ct. in 40 years, 




207.4071 


200.0080 


Total increase in the U. S., pr. ct. 




207.4671 


232.1512 



* Maryland decreased her slave population in forty years, by emancipation and 
exportation, 0.0408 per centum. The consequence ia, that of all the slave, 
states she is most prosperous. 



SrEECII AGAINST SLAVE IMPORTATION. 71 

By reference to the pamphlet on your desks,* and the table 
marked number two, in ray hand, you will find that in the slave 
states the increase of the black upon the white population has 
been slow but progressive ; whilst, in the whole Union, the 
whites have increased upon the blacks, from 1790 to 1830 ; the 
whites increasing at the rate of 232.15 per cent., and the blacks 
increasing at the rate of 187.87 per cent. ; which shows that in 
the free states the whites increase in a greater ratio upon a 
given basis than they do in the slave states, and that slavery 
is a drawback upon population. Or else it shows that immigra- 
tion is greater, or emigration less ; in either case the slave state 
is the loser. If a free white population be itself an element of 
strength and greatness, or the increase of population indicates 
prosperity, as economists all agree, then surely the law of 1833 
should stand. As population is not only the basis of strength 
and wealth, but of representation, in the Union, a contrast be- 
tween a free and a slave state, cannot fail to strike the most un- 
thinking. Kentucky has the advantage of Ohio in age, in ex- 
tent of territory, in soil, in climate, and in mineral wealth ; yet, 
by the census of 1810, it had a total of seven hundred and seventy 
seven thousand three hundred and fifty-nine inhabitants ; in- 
creasing, in ten years, thirty-three per centum ; whilst Ohio 
had one million five hundred and fourteen thousand six him- 
dred and ninety-five of souls ; having increased, in the same 
ten years, sixty-two and fifty-one-hundredths per cent. ; having 
now a greater population than Virginia, the " mother of states." 
And whilst South Carolina has increased her whole population 
two per cent., Massachusetts, of about the same age, with less 
land and natural advantages, has increased twenty-one per cent., 
in the same time. What statesman, seeing these facts, can vote 
for the repeal ? Who, that has the soul of a Kentuckian, would 
not rather that this law had formed a part of the constitution 
itself? 

The gentleman from Breckenridge has spoken of the lower 
classes of New England as "slaves — worse than slaves;" and, 
because we have alluded to the genius of that people, as devel- 
oped in literature, and especially in the useful sciences and me- 
chanic arts, we are taunted as being allied in feeling to " Yan- 
kees^ Since the ever memorable reply of Daniel Webster to 

* Review of R. Wickliffe's Speech, by C. M. Clay, 1840. 



72 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

the Soutli Carolinian on Foote's resolutions, I had supposed that 
no one would venture to deride the name of " Yankees^ They 
need no defence at my hands ; I shall make none. I am a Ken- 
tuckian, of the Virginia descent ; I have not been taught to con- 
sider praise given to another as so much detracted from myself; 
nor have I thought it necessary, in order to establish my claims 
to true blood, to abuse all the world besides. It is the part of 
friendship to supply defects and to correct errors. Because J am 
proud of my state, and love her renown, I call upon her, by all 
the triumphs of the past, to seek the true road to permanent 
happiness and ultimate glory. [Mr. C. here read from a news- 
paper, showing that there had been orders from all parts of the 
world for American machinery — grist-mills for Holland ; steam- 
cars for England : ships for Russia : and cotton-gins for India.] 

I ask the friends of slave-labor how long shall we wait till 
we shall be able to supply Europe and the world with such 
things of manufacture ? How long before Holland will send to 
Kentucky for grist-mills ? How long before we shall look upon 
such steam-cars, of home make, as Philadelphia has lately 
had the honor of shipping for the admiration of other lands ? 
How long before we shall here see such a steam-ship as lately 
floated in the harbor of New York, for the emperor of Russia? 
We have waited for more than two hundred years to see these 
things, in vain. How many years more shall our hearts fail 
with the sickness of " hope deferred " before we shall share the 
triumphs of these creations of " Yankee " genius ? Like the 
doomed Jew we wander on in darkness and sullen expectancy, 
clinging with desperate fondness to the cast-off idols of days that 
are gone, unconscious of the heavenly light which surrounds 
us, and the Deity that moves in our midst ! 

Have we succeeded better in literary eminence ? I might ask 
of the South, with the British reviewer of America, " who reads 
a southern book ?" Where are our Irvings and Coopers ; where 
our Percivals and Hallecks ; our Sillimans and Hares, oiu- Ful- 
tons and Franklins ? Our very paper, and primers, and presses 
are of Yankee make. It is true, that in politics and law — those 
ever tense and exciting professions, those hot-beds of human in- 
tellect — ^we have produced some splendid specimens of mental 
energy. But they only make us more deeply regret that so 
much mind should lie for ever dormant — perishing in embryo, 
and sunk in the stagnant pools of luxury and indolence which 



SPEECH AGAINST SLAVE IMPORTATION. 73 

slavery spreads afar, like the fabled Stygian lake, an eternal bar- 
rier between its doomed spirits and a higher Heaven ! 

Shall I, then, be taunted with Yankee feeling because I 
would dispel the lethargy which rests upon our loved state ? I 
am not insensible to the glory of her triumphs upon every battle 
field from Lake Erie to the Gulf of Mexico ; of her eloquence, 
which, whether uttered in the rude language of the stump, or in 
the more polished phrase of the halls of legislation, fears no ri- 
valry. I know her Boones, her Kentons, her Estills, and her 
Bryants ; the hardy stock upon which were engrafted the 
more polished scions of fairer bloom and more mature fruit. 
Shall I aggregate her glory and give names to its impersona- 
tions ? Shall I speak of her Breckenridges, her Nicholases, her 
Marshalls, and lier Clays? — those names which live with Ken- 
tucky ; to die only when she dies ; they who formed the consti- 
tution of the state, and breathed into that charter the same free 
spirit which animated their own bosoms ? What said they ? 
That slavery was a " blessing?" " the foundation of liberty?" that 
it should be perpetual 7 No, sir, no. The law of '33 but car- 
ries out and fulfils their just expectations and cherished hopes. 
The same impress of wisdom and patriotism which character- 
izes that instrument — signed by my father and by your father, 
(Mr. Calhoon's)— marks this law. And it is with pride and in- 
creased confidence that I find the descendants of those same 
Breckenridges, Marshalls, and Nicholases, all, now standing up 
the advocates of this much-abused law. It is the cause of our 
fathers that we vindicate ; we are degenerate sons if it fail. 

Gentlemen would import slaves "to clear up the forests of the 
Green River country:" ''the south of the state demands the 
repeal." Take one day's ride from this capital, and then go 
and tell them what you have seen. Tell them that you have 
looked upon the once most lovely and fertile land that nature 
ever formed : and have seen it in fifty years worn to the rock : 
tell them of the clay banks and drains and brier fields : tell 
them of houses untenanted and decaying: tell them of the 
depopulation of the country and consequent ruin of the towns 
and villages: tell them that the white Kentuckian has been 
driven out by slaves, by the unequal competition of unpaid 
labor : tell them that the mass of our people are uneducated : 
tell them that you have heard the children of the white Ken- 
tuckian crying for bread, whilst the children of the African was 



71 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

clothed, and fed, and laughed ! And then ask them if they will 
have blacks to fell their forests. Tell them yet more : that 
Green River is acquiring new strength in this house, whilst the 
representation of the interior counties is fast fading away : tell 
them that Clark has but one representative here, and that 
Bourbon, which once voted three thousand, is reduced to sixteen 
hundred voters. Tell them that Fayette has ten thousand slaves, 
as many as she has horses. Tell them all this: and, my life 
for it, they will stand for this law for ever. 

It may be doubted whether the worn and waste land seen 
in the most fertile portions of the state is owing to slave labor. 
But ignorance and carelessness, which are necessarily combined 
in the slave, make his the most slovenly and wasteful of all 
labor. The field is plowed one way : a cross-furrow is run 
another : the rains fall : the water collects into the common 
trench : the land is washed to th& rock. The slave may be 
punished : but the evil is not remedied : the soil is lost and the 
field turned waste. These things will not be seen in the free 
states. Land, which is here turned waste, or being white oak, 
is unoccupied, is better than some in New England which con- 
tributes to the sustenance and education of respectable families. 
The easy life of the slaveholder destroys his vigilance and 
activity : supersedes the necessity of economy, and the habit of 
accumulation ; and in the long run brings on poverty. Let 
not, therefore, gentlemen be astonished that the North is radiant 
with railroads, the channels of her untold commerce : whilst the 
South hobbles on at an immeasurable distance behind. 1 shall 
not dwell upon the fact that most of our educated mind is idle 
and iniprodactive : nor press the fact that idleness leads to innu- 
merable crimes — saps the foundations of all morality, whilst it 
is surely bringing on final destitution and disgrace. Nor shall 
I consider the eflfects of slavery upon the temper and affections. 
Such painful considerations I pass in melancholy silence. 

With all these unhappy facts pressing upon my every sense, 
I am denounced because I will not admit slavery to be a blessing 
and receive more of it. And the gentleman undertakes to 
threaten me and hold me responsible for every word I may 
utter upon this floor. Sir, I strike hands with the gentleman. 
And when he admits that "White labor is cheaper than slave 
labor,'- and that " slave labor drives out white labor," and de- 
clares that "\vhite laborers are slaves"— in the name of five 



SPEECH AGAINST SLAVE IMPORTATION. 75 

hundred thousand freemen of Kentucky, I denounce the gen- 
tleman, as warring upon their dearest interests, and as pursuing 
a reckless course of pohcy, which he knows dries up their 
sources of subsistence, and outlaws and banishes them from their 
native land. No ! he, and not I, is the defender of aristocrats. 
Let him tell us again, as we have been told before, that slavery 
stands in the way of education: let him be consistent: let him 
bring in a bill, as I am told he threatens to do, to abolish the 
common school system : let him monopolize the learning as well 
as the wealth of the country : let the people rest in deep igno- 
rance for ever : let them never learn their rights : then, and then 
only, can this law be repealed. 

■^This is not the first time I have heard the cry of abolition. 
It has no terrors to my ear. Bowie-knives, and belted pistols, 
and the imprecations of maddened mobs, have not driven me 
from my country's cause. My blood, and the blood of all whom 
I hold most dear, is ready when she calls for the sacrifice. But 
I shall be a tame victim neither to force nor to denunciation^ 
Whilst there is abolitionism in the north, backed by Holland, 
England, and France, and urged on by a world in arms, there 
is in these states a party far niore dangerous to all that makes 
life desirable, or liberty glorious. Never, till after the ever me- 
morable and impotent attempt of South Carolina to dissolve this 
Union, did I hear or read of slavery as the foundation of human 
liberty! The message of Governor McDufiie, of South Caroli- 
na, has the bad eminence of having first set forth this mon- 
strous and absurd doctrine, that filled the civilized w-orld with 
disgust and dismay. A distinguished gentleman from Fayette, 
and the honoraljle member from Breckenridge, are the only 
avowed converts to this new religion that I have ever seen. I 
am bound to believe that the honorable gentleman is not initiat- 
ed into the greater mysteries of this new sect ; nay, sir, I will 
undertake to say that he is not. Yet, with all the weighty re- 
sponsibilities which rest upon me as a man, and the representative 
of a gallant state, I declare that tliere is a party in this country, 
who, disregarding all the sacred memories of the past, and the 
yet more glorious anticipations of the future, would destroy the 
Pinion of these states. They are the advocates of jjerpetual 
slavery — they are the last " state nuUifiers," Southern union- 
ists — they are the disunionists. Conventions must be held, 
says South Carolina ; conventions must be held, say some in 



76 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

Kentucky ; conventions must be held, says the governor of Ala- 
bama ; the slave population must be diffused over all the slave 
states ; rules must be adopted for mutual safety and permanent 
security of slave property ! Can any man in his senses affect 
not to vmderstand to what all this leads? I declare, sir, that 
Kentucky is called upon this day to act ; to take her stand now 
and for ever. I know not Avhat course others may pursue, but, 
for myself, I have made up ray mind : " Sink or swim, survive 
or perish," I stand by the Union. 

Shall we rest in fatal security till this law is repealed ; the 
slave population diffused ; conventions held ; till we are shorn 
of our strength by calumny, bound hand and foot, and given 
over to this Southern union? No; I lift up my voice now; 
here, in the face of all Kentucky, I most solemnly protest 
against these treasonable schemes. The banner of the United 
States constitution is my shield and only safety ; tear not my 
state ; let not, I beseech you, Kentucky pass from under its hal- 
lowed panoply. Let it not be in vain that Adams, and Frank- 
lin, and Henry, and Jefferson, and Madison, and Hamilton, have 
lived ; not in vain that Washington, and Greene, and Lincoln, 
and Lafayette, and heroes innumerable, have bled and died ; 
not in vain that liberty has been proclaimed for all the world ! 
Let not the treasure and blood, which in the last war, the se- 
cond revolution, added fresh laurels to a nation of brothers, 
have been spent in vain ! Let not the Thames, and Erie, and 
Champlain, and New Orleans, perish from the memories of men. 
By the aspirations of the soul for all that is good and glorious, 
let not our hopes be lost ; let not the Union be dissolved ! In 
that day there shall be one Kentuckian shrouded imder the 
stars and stripes ; one heart undesecrated with the faith that 
slavery is the basis of civil liberty ; one being who could not 
exist in a government denying the Right of Petition, the Liberty 
of Speech, and the Press ; one man who would not be the out- 
law of nations — the slave of a slave ! 



SPEECH 

Against the Annexation of Texas, in reply to Col. R. M. Johnson and others, at 
the White Sulphur Springs, Scott County, Ky., Saturday, Dec. 30, 1843. 

The following resolutions were offered by C. M. Clay, as a 
substitute for those presented by the majority of the Committee, 
and supported in a Speech which has been reported as follows : 

RESOLUTIONS. 

1. Resolved, That the annexation of Texas to the American Union, without 
the consent of Mexico, will be a breach of the Treaty of Amity with that N.i- 
tion, contrary to the Laws of Nations, and just cause of war, on the part of 
Mexico, against the United States. 

2. Resolved, That the annexation of the Slave State of Texas to the United 
States, is contrary to the Federal Constitution: involuntary slavery, under Act 
of Congress, being in violation of Art. 5, of the amendments : " That no person 
shall be deprived of life, liberty or property, without duo process of law:" — 
being also in violation of the principles of the Declaration of American Inde- 
pendence : — and being also at war with the existence of real liberty among our 
own free-bom people. 

3. Resolved, That Kentucky, above all other States in the Confederacy, it 
vitally interested in the perpetuity of the American Union. 

4. Resolved, That the annexation of the Slave State of Texas to the United 
States, would be just cause for the dissolution of this Union : and would, most 
probably, array the Northern States, Mexico, and all Christendom, in wars 
against the Slave States, wliich could not but result in ruin and slavery to the 
whites themselves. 

5. Resolved, That in such a most deplorable event, Kentucky owes it to he r- 
self, to posterity, and to mankind, to refuse to expend her treasure and shed her 
blood, for the extension of Slavery among men: — on the contrary, all her in- 
terests, temporal and eternal, demand of her speedily to extinguish slavery 
within her borders, and to unite her destiny with the Northern States, who, 
relying upon God, liberty and equality, will bo able to stand against the world 
in arms. 

6. Resolved, That these Resolutions be sent to our Representatives in Con- 
gress, to be laid before the American people. 

[These resolutions were rejected.] 



Mr. Presidc?it, and Fellow Citizens : 

In presenting the resolutions which I have offered as a sub- 
stitute for those reported by a majority of your committee, I do 



78 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

not hope to be more successful here, than I have been in the 
committee itself. This place of meeting, the presiding officer 
(Col. R. M. Johnson), and the audience who favor me with a 
hearing, all forbid any expectation on my part, of carrying the 
substitute. But I rejoice, humble as I may be in ability, un- 
known to fame, and of no consideration among men, that asso- 
ciation with your name, in this day's deliberations, will give 
me a factitious importance which will recommend what I shall 
say to a hearing from the people of the United States. My 
opinions, of little intrinsic value, may excite the minds of my 
countrymen to reflection ; and then, after mature consideration, 
I dare venture the assertion, that the position I have this day 
taken, Avill be maintained in practice, and vindicated at last by 
a recognition of those principles, which it is the province of 
history to enforce and consecrate in the affections of mankind. 

Regarding the questions at issue, as second only to those 
which have for ever illustrated the year 1776, I shall speak with 
that freedom which I inherit as my birth-right, and which I 
so much desire to transmit unimpaired to posterity. Though 
yet young, I am old enough to know, fiom sad experience, what 
history, in such melancholy strains, has uttered in vain to the 
deaf ears of men : that the best of council is far from being al- 
ways the most acceptable. When the storm-cast vessel is 
threatened with wreck, the man who would save her by throw- 
ing over-board the boxes of gold or other things of more cher- 
ished endearment, is hardly heard, whilst he who maintains 
that all is safe, is too often trusted, till both life and treasure are 
irrevocably lost. He, who from good motives gives even bad 
advice, is entitled at least, to just forbearance ; whilst the man 
who advances the best of counsel for selfish purposes, deserves 
no consideration for his services. 

Those gentlemen who would annex Texas to the Union, and 
hurry us blindfold down this precipice of ruin and dislionor, 
have here, in these slave States, at least, popular prejudice in 
their favor. On one side are honor, power, wealth, and easy 
access to fame ; on the other side, denunciation, banislnnent, 
poverty, and obscurity threaten. If [, then, speak freely the 
trulii, when you, my countrymen, are to reap all the fruits of 
the sacrifice, no man can say that I ask too much, when I pray 
you to hear me with a patience which a subject of such deep 
inteiest demands. 



SPEECH AGAINST ANNEXINp TEXAS. 79 

First of all, then, I protest against this appeal to our sympa- 
thies in behalf of Texas, and these unjust denunciations of 
Mexico, as foreign to the true issue, and eminently calculated 
to lead us into error. Though truly, and with sorrow be it said, 
of Anglo-Saxon blood, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, 
in the language of gentlemen, I ask you what claims of sym- 
pathy has Texas on the people of the United States ? Enjoy- 
ing all the blessings which the Constitution guarantees to her 
people, — with all the offices of honor and profit open to the 
humblest citizen — with an unoccupied domain extending to 
the distant Pacific — like our first parents, going out from Eden, 
with the world before them where to choose, in any clime, a 
home — they voluntarily banished themselves from their native 
country, disavowed the glorious principles of the American 
Declaration of the rights of man, renounced the inestimable 
privileges of the Federal Constitution, which was their inherit- 
ance, and, forgetful of all the ties of common blood, language, 
and home, they became the fellow sul)jects with a half barbarian 
])eoplc, of a distant Spanish Prince. Yes, without becoming 
the advocate of Santa Anna (whom we have heard denounced 
as a tyrant and a traitor, for the purpose of prejudicing the 
cause which I vindicate), trusting to indestructible truth and 
avenging history, I challenge a comparison between Texas and 
Mexico. The Mexican people, inspired by that Declaration of 
American Independence which recreant Texas had renounced, 
in 1821, vindicated by a glorious revolution, their title to inde- 
pendence of the Spanish monarchy : and illustrated, in act, the 
postulate taught by our Revolutionary heroes, that a people can- 
not of right be governed without their own consent. In 1824, 
Mexico, following the example of the United States and Great 
Britain, who, in 1820, had declared the slave trade piracy, and 
punishable with death, prohibited, in the language of Judge 
Story, " this infernal traffic." In 1829, once more, unlike Tex- 
as, she made it part of her constitution, that no person born 
after the promulgation of the same, in the several provinces, 
should be a slave. Again, in 1836, this much abused Mexico 
declared that slavery was extinguished in the Republic ; and, 
elevating the dread standard of "God and Liberty," she called 
upon the sons of freedom by arras (o vindicate this inmiortal 
decree ! And where, now, throughout this vast empire, did this 
glad note of liberty fail to receive a willing response ? Alas ! 



80 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

for the recreant Saxon, Texas — the descendants of Washington, 
and Jefferson, and Adams, and Frankhn — Texas, who had re- 
ceived from a paternal government a gratuitous fee simple in 
the finest soil on earth, exempt from taxation for ten years, and 
without other sacrifice, save allegiance to the government and 
to the Catholic Religion, which she had most solemnly sworn 
to yield — Texas was the first to raise the black flag of " slavery 
and no emancipation " — ay, Texas was the only people who 
dared to brave the indignation of mankind, by resisting that 
liberty, which has made the nineteenth century for ever memor- 
able in the annals of the world. And yet Santa Anna is a 
most horrible despot, and much injured and oppressed Texas is 
the defender of liberty ! Santa Anna, who has civilized the 
barbarian and revolutionary spirit of his people — who has sup- 
pressed the daring bands of robbers who infested the highways, 
making life unsafe, property insecure, and commerce impracti- 
cable—who has encouraged education and the useful arts, who 
has caused to be recognised the principles of equal rights and 
representative government — who, in the midst of the embarrass- 
ments of the world, and the exhaustion, arising from revolution- 
ary and civil wars, which have especially harassed his own 
country, has preserved the Mexican faith inviolate — whose many 
gallant deeds in war and peace, have, by the almost unanimous 
acclamation of the people, again and again elevated him to the 
Presidency of the republic — Santa Anna, who has often liberat- 
ed American citizens under circumstances which induced 
England to send them into hopeless exile — Santa Anna is an 
odious tyrant ; and Texas, renegades from the land and religion 
of their fathers — Texas, the ingrates to their adopted and fos- 
tering country — Texas, the propagators of slavery — Texas, the 
repudiators of their debts, the violators of public faith — Texas is 
so lovely in the eyes of gentlemen, that we must take her to 
our embrace, although Ave fall with her into one common 
grave ! 

But, in truth, we have nothing to do with the republics of 
Texas and Mexico ; whether they be the same or two indepen- 
dent nations, is to us a matter of no concern. We have no 
evidence that she seeks our alliance, even if we were disposed 
to grant it. I am no propagandist — I am satisfied to maintain 
the principles, the independence, and tlie honor of my own 
country. The same impulse which moves me to repel foreio-n 



SPEECH AGAINST ANNEXING TEXAS. 81 

interference and to defend ray own rights, constrains me also to 
keep aloof from, and respect, the peculiar organizations which 
other nations have deemed most suitable to secure their rights. 
I contend, then, in the language of the first resolution, that 
the annexation of Texas to the United States is contrary to the 
Laws of Nations, and just cause of war on the part of Mexico. 
The recognition of the Independence of Texas by the United 
States may or may not have been a sufficient cause of war. It 
remained with Mexico to vindicate her injured honor or to 
pocket the injury or insult, as to her seemed best, relying upon 
her own capabiUty of maintaining the integrity of her empire,^ 
But when the United States, not confining herself to just, or, it 
may be, unjust sympathy, not restrained to an opinion that 
Texas is, or ought of right to be, an independent people, makes 
herself an active and principal party, by taking hold of the 
province in controversy, thus for ever making it impossible for 
Mexico to recover tlie country which, up to that time, was but 
partially or temporarily, in her view, alienated from her : then 
I say that Mexico has not only just cause of war, but that she 
would be disgraced in the eyes of all gallant nations if she did 
not use her every power for the vindication of her injured honor 
and violated territory. Learned authority has been quoted 
here, with the vain expectation of persuading us that Mexico 
has no cause of grievance in the event supposed. I dare not 
insult common sense by acquiescence in such mysterious juris- 
pnidential jargon as this. I appeal to the reason, to the in- 
stincts, the consciences of men, for the establishment of the law 
of nature upon which the laws of nations are, or ought to be, 
for ever based. /What, sir, have we a solemn treaty of amity 
with Mexico, to say nothing at present of natural right ; and is 
it the part of friendship to seize with a rapacious hand, a por- 
tion of the territory which she still claims, and appropriate it to 
ourselves ? Do not these learned jurists know that a breach of 
treaty is contrary to the laws of nations, as laid down by all the 
writers upon that most obscure science, and, without reparation, 
iust cause of war ^^ And what reparation could Ave make whilst 
we continued to hold the price of blood and violated faith? 
What war was more unjust than that carried on by the United 
States against the Florida Indians? Suppose, at some time 
after its commencement, Mexico had agreed with the Indians, 
that they were, as they declared themselves to be, free and inde- 
6 



82 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

pendent ; and suppose Mexico had subsequently thereto, thus 
addressed us : "You have expended forty milhons of dollars, you 
have lost a white man for every Indian slain in battle ; you have 
called to your aid blood-hounds, in vain, to the horror of alh 
Christendom ; for eight years you have, w^ith the whole force of 
the empire, carried on a hopeless war of recovery ; it is time 
hostilities should cease ; we will take the Floridas ourselves, 
peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must." I shall not stop to 
ask whether we should have deemed this a just cause of war, 
or to say what would have been our laconic reply. Cases have 
arisen, and will doubtless again arise, which, when a people are 
struggling to throw off an unjust and tyrannical rule, have, and 
will again justify a virtuous nation, even when in alliance with 
the tyrant, in sympathizing with, and recognising the indepen- 
dence of the oppressed. Here the rectitude of the motive and 
just cause of the injured, cure and sanctify the breach of the 
treaty of amity. But when Texas is the wrong-doer, and 
Mexico the injured party — here, Avhere not even studiously 
disguised motives, wearing the semblance of virtue, but shame- 
less and openly avowed rapacity, impel us to the breach of faith 
and the disregard of natural right : she v^'ill not only, and ought 
not only to declare war against us, but she will justly claim the 
universal sympathy and aid of all nations, to enable her to 
vindicate her desecrated soil and insulted sovereignty. 

The wrongs of Mexico, the Avishes of Texas, the armed 
arbitrament of other nations aside, the case is still far from 
being stripped of its embarrassments. It matters not so much 
what other men may think of us, as that we may think well of 
ourselves — happy, happy indeed, are they who condemn not 
themselves. If we had our own consent, and also the consent of 
the north to this annexation, still I deem it questionable whether 
Texas, as a free state, could constitutionally be admitted into 
this Union. I do not deny that the necessity of the case, the 
dread alternative of war, might not, under the treaty-making 
power, compel us to cede away or to acquire territory. Whether 
the provinces of Louisiana and Florida were acquired constitu- 
tionally or not, I shall not, at this late day, undertake to ques- 
tion. They were admitted, however, by the sovereign proprietor's 
consent ; one of them, lying around the mouth of the Mississippi 
river, threatened with eternal embarrassment the trade of the 
whole valley of the west ; no breach of violated national faith 



SPEECH AGAINST ANNEXING TEXAS. 83 

was insinuated ; no disastrous wars threatened ; and yet, able 
jurists and patriotic statesmen denied the constitulionahty of 
the acquisition, and threatened its ratification with resistance 
anpl dissolution. 
/'jBut where is the necessity for the annexation of Texas, even 
if she desired it ; even if Mexico did not denounce war ; even 
if there was no violation of national faith ; even if she was not 
a slave state? where, I ask, is that overwhelming necessity 
which generates a power not given the constitution, nor antici- 
pated by its authors? It is not territory that we want: our 
wide unoccupied domain stretches from the Mississippi to the 
far Pacific : we have already more land than we are able to 
defend from savage incursion and British usurpation. " We 
want more slave states to offset the fanatical free states." Let 
the world hear it : a^ou admit, sir, that we want Texas to extend 
slavery among men ! /[ Jnutterable emotions agitate my bosom : 
I ask the charter of my liberty — of your liberty ; I call upon 
the Declaration of American Independence upon which it is 
founded ; I invoke the spirit of freedom, which, in the day of 
suffering and threatened despair, inspired its utterance, as solemn 
protests against this most unholy scheme. Shall we not blush 
to draw the veil, which has hardly sliielded us from the contempt 
and loathing of mankind, for proclaiming liberty and practicing 
servitude? shall we no longer gull them by the hypocritical 
plea of necessity, the sole defence of tyrants ? Anew, we incur 
the guilt of slavery, and are ready to do battle, even unto death, 
for its extension. Then expunge from your annals the declara- 
tion of rights ; repeal the law of 1820, which makes the slave- 
trade [)iracy ; down with the gibbet, and bind the laurel upon 
tlie brow of the suspended culprit ; withdraw your fleet from the 
coast of Africa ; tell (ireal Britain, and the world, that you have 
been enacting a solemn farce, when you talked so loudly of 
liberty ; that tyranny is the best government, and slavery the 
truest liberty ; that now, at last, you begin to be in earnest — 
fifty years' constraint wearies (he impassible muscles of the most 
wooden face — you give it up — now you hold slavery sacred at 
home, and, like the Oriental prophet of Medina, you are ready 
to propagate your faith by fire and sword throughout the world ; 
that henceforth and for ever your watchword shall be " slavery 
or death." I care not for the precedents of the past, I declare 
that there is no power in the Federal Constitution by which a 



/ 



84 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

slave state can be admitted into this Union. Slaveiy cannot 
exist by the law of nature : it cannot exist by act of congress. 
Slavery did exist by the laws of the sovereign states ; in the 
formation of the Constitution they that far retained their sove- 
reignty, denying it to that extent to the creature of their united 
will ; if they vested in congress the power to make a slave, then 
they at the same time yielded the power to unmake him. If, 
then, the congress can make a slave state, she can unmake a 
slave state ; and if she has that power, it is her bounden duty 
not to add new slave states to the Union, but to purge it imme- 
diately of this fatal disease, which threatens death to the liberties 
of the whole country.* 

• Since the publication of this speech, some of the presses have affected not 
to understand, or, what is worse, have wilfully perverted and misrepresented 
the argument. The avowed object of the Constitution is, " to secure the 
blessings of liberty ;" and another clause says " No person shyll be deprived 
of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law " Art. 5, amendments, 
I take it for granted tiiat blacks are "persons," for even black slaves 
are so called in other parts of the Constitution ; and that " without due 
process of law" means without some offence, which shall be ascertained by law. 
Now, if the Federal Government has only special delegated powers, and no 
others, then here is a special power to prevent slavery, and there is no special 
power to create slavery. If it has inherent and sovereign power, notwithstand- 
ing the clauses here quoted to the contrary, to create slavery, then it must have 
inherent and sovereign power also to destroy slavery ; and the spirit of the 
whole instrument compels its exercise : and this seems to be an axiom which 
cannot be elucidated by argument. Whether, then, congress be the organ of 
a sovereign, or of a limited will — the Constitution — it cannot, in either case, 
make a slave. If the laws of congress are the supreme laws of the land, all 
state laws to the contrary notwithstanding, much more then is the Constitution 
forbidding "persons" to be " deprived of liberty," superior to any Icrritorial 
depende^it state law ! The original thirteen sovereign states are only excepted, 
because they created tlie Constitution itself, and prohibited it by implication 
and collateral clauses, in that instrument, from abolishing slavery within their 
respective boi-ders. I contend, then, that the original thirteen states had, and 
now have, exclusive control over slavery within their borders ; that in all places 
where congress had, or now has, exclusive control, where slavery did not pre- 
viously exist by the sovereign power of the original thirteen states, there sla- 
very does not and cannot now exist ; tliat in no territory in this wide empire 
is there now a slave ; that the Supreme Court, under a writ of habeas corpus, is 
bound to liberate any person so claimed as a slave : that in the District of 
Columbia, congress has the right to abolish slavery, by compensating masters; 
that the slaves therein are not now free, only because of the laws of cession ema- 
nating from the sovereignties of Virginia and Maryland, guaranteeing the rights 
of owners to the same, till congress should give compensation and liberation; 
that Texas, coming into the Union, loses, in the act, her sovereignty, and that 
slavery falls with it; that there is no power in congress to revive it; and that 
henceforth, and for ever, an addition of slave states to this Union is impossible. 



SPEECH AGAINST ANNEXING TEXAS. 85 

They who contend, then, for the admission of the slave state 
of Texas, are handhng a two-edged sword : it cuts both ways ; 
the assumption of such a power must therefore be abandoned at 
once and for ever. The contemptible jargon that slavery 
already existing in Texas or other territory acquired by con- 
quest purchase or voluntary cession by municipal law, congress 
may form them into slave states and admit them into the Union, 
is unworthy of consideration : it involves the absurdity of having 
the power to do, through an agent, or indirectly, that which they 
cannot do directly, or of themselves. Nothing but sovereign 
power can make a slave ; the momenta state, once having been 
independent, unites itself with this Union, at that moment its 
sovereignty is lost, and with it falls slavery at the same time. 
If the state about to be admitted was originally a part of the 
territory of the United States, it never had any sovereignty, and 
of course never could have made a slave. 

I repeat once more, that, independent of Article 5th of the 
amendments to the Constitution, slavery cannot exist by act of 
congress; but, when we there find the express language, ''No 
person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due 
process of law," all subterfuge is at an end, and the learned and 
unlearned must unite in one voice ; there is no power under 
Heaven, whilst the Constitution remains inviolate, by which 
Texas, as a slave state, can be admitted into this Union. When 
gentlemen are driven from all their strong-holds, having no 
ground to stand upon in making out a case of necessity, they 
at last come out with the old bug-bear, which has been so often 
paraded up and down, with tin pans beating and cows' horns 
blowing, whenever any party ends are to be achieved, that it 
has ceased to attract even the passing boys who are accustomed 
to shout after such unfamiliar shows — yes, England is the mon- 
ster they would get at, and they are surprised, when this old 
enemy is in the field, that a military man, like myself, should 
be the last to come to the rescue. 

Although, in the eyes of some, it be treason to say a kind or 
just thing about this haughty power, the brave cannot, at last, 
Init honor the brave. I scorn to compliment myself indirectly, 
when I say, that the greatest warriors are, in the main, the 
stanchest friends of peace. The man who intends to run 
away, cares not how soon the battle may come on ; but he 
who has determined to die or conquer, will be slow in seeking 



86 THE wraxiNGS of cassius m. clay. 

the fight. Soult and WelUngton are said to resist the war-hke 
spirit of their people ; and the correspondence of Scott and the 
Governor-General of New Brunswick, during the difficulties on the 
Maine border, is an honor to them and to their respective nations. 
In a bad cause^ a woman may put me to flight ; but plant me 
upon the right, and I am proud to say, that the man does not 
live whom I dare not look in the face. If we conquered in the 
war of Independence, it was not because of our physical strength ; 
with Lord Chatham, I say that England, in a good cause, could 
have crushed America to atoms. It was the consciousness of 
justice which nerved our people in the hour of trial. Yes, it 
was the right, in which we conquered ; it was the right, that 
called the gallant of all lands to our standard : it was the right, 
which made the veteran British Lion, who had traversed the 
world unscathed, at last crouch, in dishonor, before the unfledged 
bird of Jove. It was the glorious principles of life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness, inscribed on our banners, which, like 
the letters of fire on the Babylonian walls, struck terror into the 
enemies of our country. But in this war which you are madly 
projecting, this inspiring banner will not be borne, alas ! by us, 
but by them. Go, tell the six hundred thousand free laborers of 
ray state, before they leave home, wife, children and friends — 
before they shoulder their musket and march afar, to shed, on 
the plains of Texas, their blood, for the extension of slavery, to 
ask themselves what they are to gain ! When they lie bleeding 
and dying on the burning sands of a foreign country, or writh- 
ing in the deadly grasp of the terrible epidemics of the swamps 
of Florida and Louisiana, what maddening reflections will then 
await them— the blood of our sires has been shed in vain, the 
Constitution has been violated, the Union has been dissolved, 
our homes have been desolated, our wives and children have be- 
come outcasts and beggars ; our country is lost ; all nature fades 
from our dim, reluctant eyes ; we sink, unwept, into dishonored 
graves, accursed of God and man : — if our cause triumphs, the 
sighs and tears of millions enslaved will mar the fruits of vic- 
tory : but if it fail, as seemingly it must, then have the chains 
which we have forged for others become the heritage of our pos- 
terity for ever ! 

/ No, Mr. President, it cannot be. If the worst comes to the 

' worst, and the Union shall be dissolved, I, for one, will join my 

destiny with the North. Here, in Kentucky, my mother earth, I 



SPEECH AGAINST ANNEXING TEXAS. 87 

shall stand unawed by danger, unmoved by denunciation, a liv- 
ing sacrifice to her best prosperity. I shall not fear death itself if 
she may but hve. But if mad counsels shall press her on to 
ruin, and she shall prefer destruction to the relinquishment of 
her idols, then, and not till then, taking up my household gods, 
an unwilling exile, I shall, in other lands, seek that liberty 
■which was hopeless in my native home. I would to God that 
my voice could this day reach every log cabin in this wide and 
lovely land ; then, indeed, would I feel assured that tliis dread 
alternative could never happen ; but my words are feebly echoed 
from these walls, and the press is sealed like the Apocalyptic 
books, which human power cannot open, and darkness broods 
over the land once more, till God himself shall say " Let there be 
light ! " 

Gentlemen, I know, flatter themselves that there will be no 
dissolution of the Union. In 1803, and in 1820, we are told, 
there was the same loud talk that there is now, about separa- 
tion ; that it will wear away once more, as it did then. " It is 
natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope ; we are apt to 
shut our eyes against the painful truth, and to listen to the voice 
of that syren, till she has transformed us into beasts," alas ! that 
these lines of other days, made familiar by school-boy declama- 
tion, should rush back upon the memory with their primitive, 
awful energy. I know the North, at last they are in earnest. 
Twenty of her leading minds, her ablest, most patriotic citizens, 
have most solemnly declared in the face of men, that in the 
event of the annexation of Texas to this country, the Union 
shall be no more. Yes, sir, they have said it ; depend upon it 
they will do what they say they will do. Since the time when, 
in the vindication of the law of 1833, 1 found it necessary, in 
order to prevent the flood of Southern blacks from desolating 
our state, to appeal to the first great principles of natural and 
American law, to sustain my policy against blind and madden- 
ed avarice ; I have received from all parts of the Union letters 
and papers upon the vital subject of slavery : and I think I 
know as much about the true feelings of northern men as any 
other man in Kentucky. 

They are divided into three parties upon the subject of slave- 
ry. First, there is a small band of abolitionists, who are for 
violence, if necessary, in the extermination of slavery. They 
are few indeed, and deserve, as they receive, the execration of 



88 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

good men in both the north and the south. Then come the 
liberty party, embracing a large portion of the virtue, intelli- 
gence, and legal knowledge, the Christianity, and patriotism of 
the north. Taking the ground first occupied by Washington 
himself, that slavery was the creature of the law, and should be 
abolished by law, they appeal to the ballot-liox, not to the bayo- 
net; like the great Irish reformer, having faith in the power of 
reason, truth, and virtue, they expect to achieve a bloodless re- 
volution, more glorious than any yet arising from force and 
arms. This party, a few years ago, numbered but seven thou- 
sand voters ; now, in 1843, they poll sixty-five thousand men at 
the ballot box ; having doubled themselves every year from the 
time of their organization. At such a continued rate of increase 
I leave it to the reflecting to determine how long it will be be- 
fore they absorb the whole political power of the North. Last- 
ly, there is the great mass of northern men, who are opposed to 
slavery in principle, but who forbear to take any active part for 
its removal ; not because they do not feel many of its evils, but 
because they fear the consequences of entering upon untried 
scenes, preferring, in the language of the oft repeated maxim, to 
bear the ills they have, rather than fly to others they know not 
of. Then, there remains a fragment of men, wdio aie shame- 
less advocates of slavery, with a perverse nature, such as in- 
spires the unworthy bosoms of convicts ; they pride themselves 
upon pre-eminence in guilt, and challenge the abhorrence of 
mankind to elevate them to that notoriety which they have 
despaired of obtaining by virtuous deeds. In estimating north- 
ern feehngs, I shall pass them over entirely, as in speaking of 
the morals of Kentuckians I would not enter the penitentiary 
for illustration, so, in speaking of the north, I mention not these 
men, regarding them rather as those reprobates, whom God in 
his vengeance has inflicted upon all nations, and who are pecu- 
liar to none. 

Then, sir, these twenty men, at whose head stands the im- 
mortal name of Adams, of whom I have before spoken, are the 
true exponents of the sentiments of the great mass of northern 
freemen, and of course, also to that extent, of the two fragmen- 
tary parties which I have enumerated. You know the opinions 
of those men — they have avowed them in congress — they are 
before the world. They say that slavery, not content with the 
immunities allowed it in the original compact, has transcended 



* SPEECH AGAINST ANNEXING TEXAS. 89 

its assig-ned limits, and lecklessl)^ trenches upon the hbeities of 
the north, through a violated constitution . 

They complain that the right of petition is denied — that 
the freedom of speech and of the press is suppressed — that 
members of congress are censured for opinion's sake — that the 
post-ofRce is wrested by violence from the purposes of its 
creation. They are outraged, that their colored citizens, cooks, 
sailors, and others, contrary to the express language of the 
Constitution, instead of being allowed the privileges of citizen- 
ship, are thrown into prison and deprived of their rights with- 
out just cause. They are indignant that her free white citizens 
are horribly murdered in the south for opinion's sake, Avithout 
having violated any state or national law, or w'ithout having 
been tried by a jury of their peers, which is their inalienable 
right. They are disaffected, that the most solemn treaties of 
the United States should be nullified by the extension of the 
laws of Georgia over the Cherokee nation, by which, the 
Missionaries, free citizens of the North, were thrown into 
prison, and there kept contrary to law, and in disregard of the 
Supreme Court of the Union. They are aggrieved at the 
cause and progress of the Florida war, by which forty millions 
of dollars have been taken from the hard earnings of the 
people, — by which many thousand valuable lives have been 
sacrificed by disease and the Indian rifle — by which our 
national honor was tarnished in the employment of blood 
hounds, to drive the vmoflending savages from the homes of 
their fathers, which were their rightful inheritance — all of 
which they attribute to the sole cause of saving runaway slaves 
from fleeing into those impassable swamps. They are solemnly 
of opinion, that of right, no new slave state could have been 
admitted into this Union. They believe that there is no good 
reason why slaves held as property should be represented in 
congress, to the exclusion of all other property, and that justice, 
as well as their own interest, calls for a change in the Con- 
stitution, so as to destroy this inequality. They are opposed to 
the continuance of slavery in the District of Columbia, and in 
the territories, and to the impunity of the coasting and the 
domestic slave trade. " Annex Texas," say they, " and slavery 
will acquire such strength as to destroy the remnant of liberty 
that yet lingers in the North and in the South." All these 
grievances they have reluctantly borne for the peace, harmony, 



90 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. * 

and permanency of the Union, bought by the common blood of 
our ancestors. Should the south, now anew, violate the Con- 
stitution for the sole purpose of extending slavery, they are not 
true descendants of the men of Lexington and Bunker's 
Hill, if they do not part from slavery and its ruinous conse- 
quences at once and for ever. And because I will not shut my 
eyes to the danger which threatens us with immediate dissolu- 
tion — because 1 dare to speak fearlessly the truth : holding witli 
Jefferson, that there is no error so dangerous that it may not be 
successfully combated with reason and argument — because I 
will not, for popular favor, prove a renegade from the faith of my 
ancestors — because I will not, for the sake of office and political 
promotion, prostitute myself to the basest and most dishonorable 
purposes, by denying in public, what, in private, every one who 
is not a madman, daily acknowledges to be utterly false, that 
" slavery is a blessing," — because I am wilhng to allow that the 
six hundred thousand free white citizens of this commonwealth 
have some rights as well as we slave-holders, I am to be run down 
as an abolitionist, and the ban of the empire is to be denounced 
against me. I cannot write an answer to a complimentary 
letter from Mr. Giddings, of Ohio, but I am published through- 
out the land as an enemy to my country. And when, in the 
New York Tribune, I set forth my true position, and in the 
defence of which I challenge both North and South to shake 
me, my letter is denied publication in the presses of both politi- 
cal parties; and yet still goes on the eternal prating about the 
freedom of the press; sycophantic speeches are daily poured 
into the ears of the dear j^^ople, whilst that same people are 
barred by despotic intolerance from receiving any liglit by 
which they can knoio their rights, and free themselves from 
the competition of slave labor, which brings ignorance and 
beggary to their doors. I appeal to mankind against such 
fiendish injustice. If public opinion be indeed omnipotent, 
then let its thunders strike terror into the faithless sentinels on 
the w^atch-lower of liberty — the false prophets who have basely 
usurped the tripods of the press.* To say that I am an aboli- 

* Note. — Rotteck, the profound historian of the world says : 

"It is far more difficult to maintain liberty than to acquire it. It may be 

gained by a momentaiy elevation, by the power of transient enthusiasm ; but 

it can be maintained only by constant exertion and virtue, harmony, vigilance, 

and the hard victory over selfishness." Speaking of the first censtire of the press, 



SPEECH AGAINST ANNEXING TEXAS. 91 

tionist. in the sense in which the enemies of all moral progress 
would have yon believe, that I would sanction insurrection and 
massacre : my wife, children, mother, brothers and sisters, and 
relations and friends are all hostages for my sincerity, when 
restraining myself to the use of courteous terms, I repel the 
unjust and dishonoring imputation. That I am an abolitionist 
in the sense, that I would take away, without just compensation, 
the rights of property in slaves, which the laws secure to me 
and to some thirty or forty thousand citizens of Kentucky, my 
letter to the Tribune which is before the world disproves. 

Still, sir, I am an abolitionist. Such an abolitionist as I 
have been from my boyhood — such an abolitionist as I was in 
1835, when I declared in my place in the House of Represen- 
tatives to which I was just then eligible, that if the Constitution 
did not give us power to protect ourselves against the infernal 
slave trade, that I renounced it, and would appeal to a Conven- 
tion for a new one. Such an abolitionist as I was again in 
1840, when I declared in the same House of Representatives, 
that I wisiied to place the State of Kentucky in such a position, 
by sustaining the law of 1833, that she could move at any time 
she thought it conducive to her highest interest, to free herself 
from slavery. Such an abolitionist as I have ever avowed my- 
self in public speeches and writings to the people of this district, 
that if Kentucky was wise enough to free herself from the 
counsels of pro-slavery men, that slavery would perish of itself 
by the voluntary action of masters and the irresistible force of 
circumstances which would convince the people to the use of 
free, instead of slave labor, as every way most advantageous. 
Such ail abolitionist as were the band of immortal men who 
formed the Federal Constitution, who would not have the word 
"slave" in that sacred instrument, am I. Such an abolitionist 
*as was Washington, who, so far from lending countenance to 
the propagation of slavery, as you are now doing, declared that 



lie cannot subdue his indignation to the usual historical denunciation, but he 
thus breaks forth : " Pope Alexander VI., the most detestable of all tyrants, 
fust established it. Curse on his memory I The press is to words what the 
tongue is to thoughts. Who will constrain the tongue to ask permission for 
the word it shall speak, or forbid the soul to generate thoughts ? mat should 
be free and sacred if not the press ? " 

The New York Tribune has gained an enviable fame, by maintaining the 
true freedom of the press in America. . . ... 



92 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

on all proper occasions, his influence and his vote should be cast 
for the extinguishment of slavery among men, am I also. Such 
an abolitionist as was Jefferson, the great father of democracy, 
whom you all profess to follow, who foretold what has since 
partially come to pass, that slavery, if not destroyed, would 
jeopardize and finally extinguish the liberties of the w^iites 
themselves : who foresaw, with an unerring glance, that the 
slavery of the black race, if not remedied by the whites, would 
at last remedy itself, such an abolitionist am I also. And being 
such, I take issue with the opinion, which has been here to-day, 
as it has been often elsewhere, most dogmatically advanced, 
that the question is, " whether the whites shall rule the blacks, 
or the blacks shall rule the whites." Such an assumption is 
false in theory, false in practice, and so proven to be false by all 
experience. It is derogatory to human nature and blasphemy 
against God himself 

All America, except Brazil and the United States, have freed 
their slaves ; and are the whites slaves in consequence ? At the 
Revolution, on the day of the Declaration of Independence, all 
the states held slaves, not excepting Massachusetts. Now, 
there are thirteen non-slaveholding states ; are those ten mil- 
lions of Northerners slaves ? Great Britain, in conjunction with 
all Europe, except the miserable anarchies of Spain and Portu- 
gal, has long since emancipated many slaves, and now, in the 
year 1843, to her honor be it spoken, having liberated thirty 
millions of her East India serfs, in all her wide domains which 
touch on every sea, and embrace every clime under the whole 
Heavens, there is not, nor indeed can be, a single slave : and is 
she enslaved? No, she has sense enough to know, and heart 
enough to feel that it is justice, honor, and glory, which secure 
the liberties of a people, and make them invincible and im-^ 
mortal. 

Do gentlemen take the absurd position, that one hundred and 
eighty thousand freed men could enslave Kentucky ? West 
India emancipation proves that the great majority of freed men 
could be employed economically in the same offices at small 
wages, which they now fill, with, perhaps, more ease and safety 
than now exist. But should they prove turbulent, for which 
there would be no cause, and which no man in his senses 
believes would happen, and were I disposed to indulge in that 
vaunting spirit, which, to-day, has so powerfully infected us : 



SPEECH AGAINST ANNEXING TEXAS. 93 

with five thousand such troops as those I have the honor to 
command, to whom gentlemen have been pleased to allude in a 
manner so complimentary, at my expense, I would undertake 
to drive from the state tlie assembled one hundred and eighty 
thousand in arms. They further tell us, with most reverential 
gravity, that " God has designed some men for slaves, and man 
need not attempt to reverse the decree : it is better that the 
blacks should be slaves, than the whites." This proposition, 
which I denounce as utterly false, passes away before the 
glance of reason, as the dew before a summer's sun. 

I shall admit, merely for the sake of argument, that some 
men always have, and possibly will perform menial offices for 
the more fortunate. Let the law of nature or of God, have its 
undisturbed action — let the performance of those offices be volun- 
tary on tlie part of servants, and that beautiful harmony by which 
tlie highest intellect is uniti^d, by successive inferior links to the 
lowest mind, will never be disturbed. The sensitive and highly 
organized, the intellectual, will gradually rise from servitude to 
command : the stolid, the prolligate, the insensible, and coarsely 
organized will sink into their places : the law of God and en- 
lightened freedom will still be preserved, and the greatest good 
to the greatest number be secured for ever. But when, by muni- 
cipal law, and not by the law of fitness, which is the law of na- 
ture, not rf^garding the distinctions of morals, mind, or bod)^, 
whole classes are doomed to servitude : when the intellectual, 
the sensitive, the foolish, the rude, the good, the bad, the refined, 
the degraded, are all depressed to one level, never more to rise 
forever ; then comes evil, nothing but evil, like as from dammed 
up waters, or pent up steam, floods and explosions come slowly, 
but come at last — ^so nature mocks with temporary desolation, 
at the obstacles man would oppose to her progress, and at length, 
moves on once more in all the untrammeled vigor and unfad- 
ing loveliness which, from eternity, was decreed. That the black 
is inferior to the white, I readily allow ; but that vice may de- 
press the one, and virtue, by successive generations, elevate the 
other, till the two races meet on one common level, I am also 
firmly convinced. Modern science, in the breeding and culture 
of other animals than man, has most fully proved this fact, 
which the ablest observers of man himself, all allow, that men- 
tal, and moral, and physical development transmit their several 
properties to the descendants — corroborating by experience, the 



94 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

divine decree, that the virtues and the vices of the father shall 
be visited on the children, to the third and fourth generation. 
In the capitals of Europe, blacks have attained to the highest 
places of social and literary eminence. That they are capable 
of a high degree of civilization, Hayti daily illustrates. There 
we have lately seen a revolution, conducted in a manner that 
would do honor to the first people on earth : one of the avowed 
grounds of which was, that President Boyer neglected to secure 
general education to the people, a consideration that should 
make some of the states blush in comparison. After the expul- 
sion of the tyrant they set about forming a more republican 
Constitution, admitting the whites who had participated in their 
dangers and success, into all the rights of citizenship. If history 
be true, we owe to the Egyptians, said to be the modern Moorish 
race, the arts and sciences, and our early seeds of civilization. 
How many centuries did it take to bring them to perfection ? 
When we reflect how little time the negro race has been under 
the influences of other civilized nations, and the rapid progress 
they have made in an upward direction, we have no reason to 
treat them with that absurd contempt, which, in both the eye of 
reason and religion, stands equally condemned. Why then, I 
am taunted by both pro-slavery and anti-slavery men, do I hold 
slaves ? Uninfluenced by the opinions of the world, I intend in 
my own good time to act or not to act, as to me seems best in 
view of all the premises. Yet, I thus far pledge myself, that 
whenever Kentucky will join me in freeing ourselves from this 
curse, which weighs us down even unto death, the slaves I own, 
she shall dispose of as to her seems best. I shall ask nothing 
in return, but the enhanced value of my land which must ensue 
gradually from the day that we become indeed a free and inde- 
pendent state. I will go yet further, give rae/ree labor, and I 
will not only give up my slaves, but I will agree to be taxed to 
buy the remainder from those who are unwilling or unable con- 
sistently, with a regard to pecuniary interest, to present them to the 
state, and then I shall deem myself and my posterity richer in 
dollars and cents even, than we were before. 

But I return from this digression. We are told that England 
almost surrounds us, and that if we do not break away from her 
fatal grasp, our days are numbered ; and to excite oia- patriotic 
indignation we hear the taimt, that by our last treaty, territory 
was lost, and the country betrayed ! Indeed ! and where then 



SPEECH AGAINST ANNEXING TEXAS. 95 

were the swords which to-day are so restless in their scabbards ? 
where were your indignation meetings, your chivahic detiance, 
your patriotic ardor? If we must meet England, let's meet her 
in defence of our western border : there let us vindicate our sul- 
lied honor : there, battling in the name of liberty and the right, 
let us not doubt for a moment on whose standard victory will 
perch. But no ! you don't want to fight England. In Oregon 
are no titles in lands to be confirmed, no bonds to be redeemed, 
no plunder to be indulged, no slavery to be perpetuated./vV hen 
miserable Mexico, exhausted by revolutionary and civil wars, 
was inundated by armed troops from the United States, marching 
from our very cities in open day, with colors flying, led on by 
land-mongers and bond-speculators, to violate the neutrality of 
a country at peace with us — whilst she protested and implored 
us by the ties of republican sisterhood to spare her — we an- 
swered her entreaties and just complaints by sending Gen. 
Gaines into (if necessary) her very borders, under pretence of 
guarding our own country, but in, fact to aid in the rescue of 
Texas from the invading iocy/Alnl when the (Canadians, in- 
t;pired by sentiments of true liberty, invoked the God of battles 
and the sympathies of nations to her rescue from the IJritish crown 
— that Britain, who we are now told, is about to seal us up hernie- 
ticaliy— that Britain, with whom we had two exasperatmg wars 
• — that Britain, whom the gentlemen so much denounce, — dared 
to come into the borders of the United States, and to cut out an 
American vessel lying in our own town — and to destroy the 
lives of American citizens, resting under the folds of the broad 
banner of the stars and stripes. And when McLeod, one of the 
perpetrators of the deed, was taken in our border, where he had 
tauntingly intruded himself, and held to answer for the murder, 
this same haughty Britain, defyingly assumed the responsibili- 
ty, demanded his unconditional release, and denounced war as 
the consequence of refusal. 

Where, then — where, I ask once more, was that military fer- 
vor which to-day would hurry us to battle? You heard not, 
then, the blood of our brother, crying to us, from the ground, for 
vengeance ! Silent as the still waters which had for ever closed 
over our murdered countryman, you opened not your mouth ! 
Aye, more yet — your Major-Gcncral was sent in hot haste to the 
northern border, not like Gaines, to enter into the enemy's country, 
but to keep the peace at home, lest England might not bear with 



96 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

your pitiable humility. Your Attorney-General was hurried off 
to New York, to guard, with all the inviolability of a great na- 
tional officer, McLeod from harm. Your Secretary continued to 
write frequent and explanatory letters to the British Minister, 
anxiously protesting that the laws of New York would no doubt 
release the prisoner after trial, which the General Government, 
if they had the power, would immediately do. All this we had 
to bear, not because we were not indignant, not because we re- 
garded ourselves as in the wrong, not because whether right or 
wrong, at other times, we would not have hung McLeod as high 
as Haman. No — it was because we were unprepared, utterly 
unprepared for war ; that although England stood single-handed 
against us, we pocketed the insult and the injury, and at last 
released the prisoner. And now, when these ten millions of 
northerners — they who cast our cannons, build and man our 
navy — who make our swords and munitions of war — who are 
capable of inventing more infernal machines than ever the de- 
mon of war has yet dreamed of, and who have the iron nerve to use 
them — now, when they are not only not for us, but against us — - 
now, when we are opposed, not to England single-handed, but to all 
Christendom, united with Mexico — now, when we are in a worse 
state of defence than before — now, in a manifestly bad cause, 
where we are losers, whether we stand or fall — now we are to 
be hurried into the miserable policy, only worthy of madmen, 
of seizing on Texas, and waging a general war ! For one, I 
dare not, I will not do it, I pray you to consider this matter 
yet a little while longer : sleep on it a few nights, if sleep you 
can — scrutinize the admonitions of an unerring conscience — see 
if it be a cause that you can pray for — a cause upon the justice 
of which you dare invoke the diead arbitrament of the God of 
battles. If it be not, desert it now and for ever — renew your 
vows upon the desecrated altars of an injured country — spurn- 
ing all party trammels, trample into dust the black Hag of war, 
slavery, and dissolution, and, from every house-top throughout 
this boundless empire, let there be thrown out, once more, the 
soul-cheering banner — " Liberty and Union, one and insepara 
ble, now and for ever." 



SPEECH, 

Against the Annexation of Texas to the United States, delivered in Lexington, 
Kentucky, on the 13th day of May, 1844, in reply to Thomas F. Marshall. 

[Thomas F. Marshall having- addressed for three hours a 
large and attentive audience, in an impassioned and eloquent 
manner, in favor of the immediate annexation of Texas to the 
United States, C. M. Clay rephed substantially as follows :] 



/' 



I am not insensible, men of Fayette, of the hard task which 
I have voluntarily imposed upon myself I have often witnessed, 
as you have done, the powerful influence which the honorable 
}- gentleman w ho has just addressed you never fails to exercise 
Y over a popular audience ; and I frankly admit, that I should 
have much preferred that some one more able than myself should 
have undertaken the vindication of the cause which I now 
advocate ; but since no one has thought fit to enter the lists, I 
could not consent to sit still when measures of such a ruinous 
character were urged, without raising my feeble voice in solemn 
protest against a scheme which I cannot regard otherwise than 
revolutionary, mad, and fatal to my country. / 

The gentleman has not anticipated me as he supposes, and I 
regret that he has thought it necessary to refer to my anti-slavery 
opinions, which may indeed prejudice me in the consideration of 
this audience, but which are not at all necessary to a triumpiiant 
vindication of the integrity of " the Union as it is." Nor do I come 
as the advocate of Henry Clay, or the whig party, with whom 
I and the gentleman have so long acted. No ! I stand here as 
a citizen of Kentucky, and of tlie United States, a southerner 
in birth, association and feeling, and united irrevocably in the 
destiny which awaits us all in common ; yet I trust that if I 
know myself, I shall this night rise superior to the trammels of 
party, and feel and speak only as an American, not knowing 
the faint lines of separation betwxen Whig and Democrat, or the 
more miserable distinction between the North and the South. I 
shall not say that the gentleman is influenced by motives less ele- 
7 



98 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

vated than these ; yet I cannot but regret that he has till this late 
hour withheld his light from the people, and now, Avhen both the 
great party leaders have denounced this project, that he should, 
upon the eve of an exciting national election, press it upon 
the consideration of the country, when the public mind is so 
little prepared for issues of such overwhelming interest. And 
allow me here to return my thanks to Martin Van Buren for 
the high stand he has taken in behalf of our national honor, 
and to commend that greatness of soul which, for the first time 
nascent in this well-drilled partizan, has enabled him to break 
away from the dishonoring shackles which some of his party 
sepmed over-ready to impose upon him. 

■^The gentleman has with a most vivid imagination portrayed 
the beauties and fertility of Texas ; he has spread out the map 
of the world before us,* and holding up the plunder and con- 
quests of other nations, he hopes to lull our consciences, whilst 
he stimulates in us a taste for rapine^ I profess not to be learned 
in geography, or history, yet, as I glance my eye over this scene 
of the world's history, I am forced to confess, that I see nothing 
in the eventful changes of past times to encourage, but much 
to deter us from the extension of boundary ; more especially, 
when that extension is founded upon rapine and injustice. I 
have' read in my school-boy days of objects yet more lovely than 
Texas, painted, as she has been, with all the artist's skill, which 
the gentleman possesses in so eminent a degree. Here lies, in 
the Mediterranean sea, the petty peninsula of Laconia, a mere 
spot on the wide waste of waters ; there, in the midst of Asia 
Minor, the most fertile and once the most wealthy portion of 
the world, the prolific mother of nations, was the site of the 
world-renowned Troy, embracing I know not how much of ter- 
ritory, men, and military strength. Her proud and God-defying 
prince, yielding to those unlawful passions of stimulated desire 
which the geiitleman would foster to-day, seized on the lovely 
bride of Sparta's monarch, and bore her in secure triumph, as 
he vainly supposed, into the brazen w^alls of his time-honored 
city. The contemptible hill-bound city of Sparta at once grew 
strong in the pressure of her wrongs : in the name of outraged 
humanity, violated hospitality, and omnipotent justice, she sum- 
moned to her standard the gallant spirits of other lands, and 

* Mr. M. spoke with the Map of the World before him. 



SPEECH IN REPLY TO T, F. MARSHALL. 99 

mvoking- the avenging Gods, and inexorable destiny, she carried 
fire and the sword to the very citadel of this vaunted den of 
robbers. The rude home of Menelaus yet blooms amid its 
waste of woods and hills, eternal in the memory of men ; the 
antiquaxiau searches in vain for any traces of the golden palaces 
and silken bed-chambers of the dishonoring and dishonored 
Paris. Here on this other neighboring peninsula stood Athens ; 
by brilliant talents, and lofty public virtue, she rose to an emi- 
nence which vast territories and unjust conquest could not 
confer upon the proudest nations of the world. Already the 
first naval power in the world, and standing in prowess at the 
head of confederated Greece — having part of the continent and 
many isles of the sea tributary to her— she was not yet satisfied ; 
in the Isle of Sicily, the granary of the Mediterranean, she saw 
another Texas, necessary, as her demagogues w^ould have her 
believe, to her lasting glory and secure existence ; unhappily, 
she forgot to ask herself, not what she wanted, but to what she 
had a right ! Under the walls of Syracuse the best blood of 
Athens was shed, her fleet was destroyed, and with it passed 
away the glory and independence of the Athenians. 

The Turk now keeps watch in the Acropolis of Athens : the 
tread of slaves is heard along the Pira'us : and the plains of Ma- 
rathon and the names of Salamis are forgotten. Here lies Ma- 
cedon, a first-rate empire when all her energies were constrained 
W'ithin her natural boundaries, but when she poured her troops 
in fiery floods of conquest over the greater portion of Europe, 
Asia, and Africa, her blood sank down into barren sands, and 
she that lived by the sword also perished forever. 

Shall I speak of the Persian, tiie Roman, the Mongolian, the 
Goth, the Celt, the Frank, thellun, all wasting themselves in vain 
and empty conquests— meeting in cpiick and dread succession the 
same doom by them imposed upon others ? It were a useless 
repetition of the same oft-told tale, that the unjust thing, linger- 
ing out a forced existence for years, till men of limited vision 
took com age and denied the existence of God himself, and im- 
partial retribution, shall utterly perish and pass away at last. 
Come to this, boasted Spain, herself^reaching from sea to sea, 
the mistress of Europe and the monopolizer of continents — here, 
within these narrow bounds, not so large as Texas even, she 
grew to be the first power in Europe ; but the date of her con- 
quests was the beginning of her downfall ; not all the gold of 



100 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

Mexico and Peru could satisfy her crimes, nor the chivahic va- 
lor and romantic glory of a Cortes and a Pizzaro shield her 
from tlie retributive sword and the vengeance and the contempt 
of nations. In these lawless conquests, though sanctioned by 
the desecrated majesty of Israel's God, in the impious decrees of 
the Pope, the seeds of anarchy, misrule, and contempt for all 
those obligations, which from the days of chaos and night to the 
nineteenth century of the Christian era, have ever been recog- 
nized by the wise among men, were broadly sown ; go now 
among her revolutionary hordes and remorseless bandits and 
see the mature fruit. 

I am not so sure that England — England, the gentleman's 
everlasting raw head and bloody bones, his dread object of ha- 
tred, envy, and fear, his epilectic fit, that maddens him with con- 
vulsions, and turns the kindly currents of humanity and bro- 
therhood into floods of passion, vengeance, and blood — I am by 
no means sure that England is not upon the eve of some great 
catastrophe in consequence of her very great extension, not unlike 
those which history has so often in trumpet tones uttered in 
vain. I dare venture the assertion that a nation may grow too 
great for the government of a single intellect; and such is the 
nature of mind that when a certain degree of talent is called for 
in the history of a nation and cannot be found, then also Avill a 
combination of secondary talent strive in vain to master the des- 
tinies of a people. I implore you, then, my countrymen, be not 

■^deceived by these fatal allurements which are held out to move 
us from our integrity ; for while you have followed me in this 
hasty review of the decline and fall of empires, you cannot fail 
to perceive, if you have given ear to the dread revelations of his- 
tory, that the beginning of decay comes from a vain-glorious 
spirit, resulting in injustice and rapine ; ever forgetful that they 

__who sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind ! It seems to me 
that the nature of human society is overlooked entirely by gen- 
tlemen ; the object of all association is mutual protection, and 
when a nation has grown strong enough to protect herself, com- 
paring her strength and numbers and territory with the other 
nations, what more can be done ? Have we reached that point ? 
Having stood against England in two wars, with less than 
twelve millions of people, and possessing territory, with a po- 
pulation less dense than that of England and France, capable 
of maintaining more than one hundred millions of people, pos- 



SPEECH IN REPLY TO T. F. MARSHALL. IQl 

sessing- all the minerals, soils, and vegetables, and climes of the 
globe, I say we are large enough ; we have all the elements of 
greatness, security, and independence ; it is avarice, madness, 
and crime to seek more. Here, sir, in the midst of the changes 
and desolations of nations, for ages, is the little, gallant, and 
independent Switzerland — contented with her poverty, her free- 
dom, and her mountain home, she has turned no lascivious eye 
upon the rich lowlands which woo her descent on every side ; 
seeking no conquests, she has successfully resisted all aggres- 
sion — she has ventured to be just, and the world stands awed in 
her presence. Clinging to the highest attribute of Deity, she 
feels sure of His omnipotence, standing eternal as the basis of 
her hills. Let us, too, listen to that voice which, whether by sage, 
in caves and forests wild, and on ocean's waves and earth's secret 
jjlaces, wrested from unwilling nature, or coming in paternal 
tones of security and love through divine revelation, speaks 
alike to individuals and nations, and bids us '• be just and 
fear not !" 

The gentleman holds us up the map and presents us the hi- 
deous and deformed step of Texas obtruding herself into the 
harmonious valley of the Mississippi, and marring the beauty 
and arrondissement of the empire, claiming the waters of the 
Mississippi and all its tributaries as ours. Here also lie the Bri- 
tish possessions south of the St. Lawrence, marring the beauty 
of the map, thus: dare he extend his rule there also ? Oh no, 
the British lion slumbers upon the banks of the St. John's, and 
the gentleman, with all his boasted gallantry, is not the man to 
" Iru" him by the beard." 

;:>-^'iiilst we look on this picture, let us not forget that it is but 
the body of the nation : the nobler, better part, beams out in its 
glorious deeds and its undoubted good name. From the hour 
of our existence to the present time, we hold no land by con- 
quest or rapine. Justice and good faith have marked our inter- 
course with all nations ; I shall not be the fust to sully the pu- 
rity of my country's escutcheon.^ 

We are told of the long lindof border which exposes us to 
savage warfare and foreign incursion on the West : and Texas 
must be seized to shorten this border, and diminish the necessity 
of defensive outposts. Now, sir, I utterly deny the proposition. 
It is the established doctrine of European policy, that the safest 
border, next to an impassable waste, for one nation, is the inter- 



102 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

position of a weak nation. If this be true, and who will doubt 
it? for Mexico and Britain could not strike us till they had thrust 
Texas through the side, what better barrier could we have than 
Texas on the south ; and especially as a shield from savage in- 
cursion ? For Texas would fear our power when unexerted, 
and be at peace by treaty and interest ; but the savage, who 
knows no law but force, actually pressing upon his existence, 
would only be kept at bay by continual war. I say, then, that 
Texas, at her own expense, as an independent government, or 
as a Mexican province, guards us from the mouth of the Sabine 
to its source, and thence to the Red River : then come the 
wastes of the volcanic soil of Western Arkansas, the best fron- 
tier a nation could have. But take in Texas, and so far from 
diminishing our frontier, you give us twelve degrees of latitude 
to guard, running from the Rio del Norte, in twenty-six, to lati- 
tude thirty-eight, north, being about one thousand miles on a 
parallel of longitude, and near fifteen hundred following the Rio 
del Norte — along the whole space of which we should have to 
keep up defences, to us now uncalled for, against the untold 
thousands of savage warriors, who have already held our nation 
at bay in Florida, and be exposed to the attacks of Mexico from 
the thousand streams which flow east through a fertile country 
to the Rio del Norte ; the worst possible, instead of the best bor- 
der for a nation. So that, as a question of border and defence, 
I strip the gentleman of every foot of ground upon which he has 
entrenched himself. 

T declare to you, my countrymen, that throughout the long 
and impassioned speech which we have heard, there has been 
but one argument of any force urged, to which all the others 
indeed have been merely subsidiary, and that is this, " If we 
don't take Texas, Britain will." I will not call this the robber 
argument, as this has been protested against, but I will say that 
It is this much : Sir stranger ! you are traveling in a dangerous 
wood, you are among thieves, if I don't take your purse, some 
one else will, so stand and deliver, or else I will knock you on 
the head and help myself For two long hours this haughty 
power has been held up to our distrustful gaze : and neither 
geography, history, nor eloquence, spared in portraying the net 
which she is spreading for us. 

We are told of her eternal policy of conquest by arms and 
diplomacy — her world-wide power is drawn in giant outline 



SPEECH IN REPLY TO T. F. MARSHALL. 103 

before us — she, not satisfied with the greater portion of the old 
world, aheady holds more land than any other nation on this 
continent — she runs along our whole northern border, in Ore- 
gon and on the little island of Vancouver — she has traveled 
around Cape Horn, traversing two seas to take a point of attack 
on our w^estern border, and then getting hold on the soil of 
Texas, she will extend her sway through Mexico to the Carri- 
bean sea — she will cut off the outlet between Cuba and South 
America, and seizing on Cuba, block the Florida stream, and 
Bhut us up in the Gulf of Mexico — and passing through Texas 
to Oregon, meeting her forces on Vancouver's isle, she will "rein 
us in " on the w^est, and like an old spider with a fly in her web, 
she will devour us at her leisure. 

With all due respect for the gentleman's facts and logic, I 
must say, that this splendid array of English policy is based 
upon his own vivid imagination, and on that only. She borders 
on the north, 'tis true, yet it cannot be supposed that she can 
long hold supremacy there over her own colonies ; and some of 
her ablest statesmen have debated in Parliament the propriety 
of not waiting for a revolution, but of giving up peaceably a 
colony which destiny decrees to be free. It is not necessary for 
England to pass through Texas and round through Mexico and 
Columbia, to command the pass between Cuba and South 
America. Does not the gentleman know that England already 
owns several of the small islands lying in the straits of which 
he speaks ; and so far as it is possible for her in any event to 
shut us in by her navy she already does so now ? 

As to Cuba, we have already declared that she shall not hold 
it, except we are first prostrated by arms. This voice, efiiciently 
coming from us, when we were several millions weaker than wo 
are now, does any man here suppose that England would dare 
now to take Cuba, when we are still more strengthened for the 
strife ? The geographer just read with so nnich interest has 
told us that the whole coast of Texas is not gifted with a single 
harbor capable of affording anchorage, fit for vessels of war. 
But she is bordered from the Sabine to the Rio del Norte with 
shallow lagoons, which will hardly ever hold a first-rate war 
steamer, and this, the gentleman himself well knows. And 
were it otherwise, where would be the propriety of passing by 
land three Inmdred miles through an unprovisioned country 
from Texas to the Mississippi, when she could any day by a 



104 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

ruse burn New-Orleans ? Such a track of attack, giving us 
time to pour oar troops, from the Aroostook to the lakes, as well 
as from the whole valley of the Mississippi, upon her as soon as 
she touched the Mississippi, is unheard of in the history of war 
and utterly idle and absurd. The idea of passing through 
Texas two thousand miles to the Columbia, and then three 
thousand miles over the Rocky Mountains, one thousand of 
which is incapable of subsisting an army, being almost banen, 
covered with prickly pear, and deserted by the beasts of the 
forest even, is the most Quixotic anticipation that these prohfic 
lands have yet bred to startle the credulity of a wonder-loving 
people. I say then, that the whole fabric of the gentleman's 
argument tumbles to the ground. 

The remarks of Lord Brougham in the House of Lords have 
no weight with me as to the policy of England. We all know 
the embarrassment wliich the opposition in this comitry, as well 
as in England, throws in the way of the government ; but here 
I have Lord Aberdeen's declaration, made to Mr. Everett, which 
is conclusive as to the policy of England with regard to Texas. 

[Mr. Clay here read from Lord Aberdeen's statements to Mr. 
Everett.] 

Now then, England has gone further than she need to have 
gone, and to strip us of all excuse for seizing Texas, she has 
declared to the world her intention, " to continue to treat Texas 
as an independent power." Not only so, but if this be not 
enough, I stand by the gentleman in saying to England and 
the world, let Texas alone. This is a quarrel between Mexico 
and Texas, the United States will not permit other nations to 
interfere. And if, as the gentleman supposes, there is a fixed 
destiny that these two great nations, England and America, 
brothers, and joint depositors of constitutional liberty among 
men, are running a course of rivalry, which leads at last to 
collision, and the ultimate ruin of the one or the other — a 
proposition which every idea I have, of God and natvne, utterly 
repudiates — I say I should not make haste to seize on Texas, 
a vacant club which will be used to bruise our heads, but I 
should not only let her seize the club, but strike the first damn- 
ing blow, which, like that of Cain, would eternally ostracise her 
from the fellowship of humanity. Ay, sir, I would have her, 
if we must fight her, palpably in the wrong — as much in 
the wrong as we would be, were we now to seize on Texas, 



SPEECH IN REPLY TO T. F. MARSHALL. 105 

on any such miserable pretence of dread necessity as this ! I 
would have inscribed on our banner once more that sentiment 
which ralhed us in 1776, and was the stjength of our arms, 
"right against might." This robber argument was not the 
argument of the revolution : the man who grew immortal in 
that contest, who had more at stake in our continued indepen- 
dence and glory than all here present, gave no such miserable 
advice as this. Looking at those universal and immortal prin- 
ciples which have governed the world from the beginning, he 
solemnly warned us to do right, that we might suffer no 
wrong. 

As I stand here this night — -as I love my country, and would 
leave her a safe depository of all that I would not have perish 
with me, I would say to you, do no wrong, that your spirits may 
be calm in tlic hour of trial, and your nerves strong in the day 
of battle. I cannot but admire the ingenuity of the gentleman, 
in mixing up Oregon with this Texas annexation. He has 
gilded the pill that we may swallow it — disturbed the water that 
lie may catch his prey ; for while I am ready for Oregon, if it 
be ours^ as I believe it is, to fight to the death, so I am free to 
avow that nothing short of the alternatives of slaveholding or 
personal dishonor could induce me to make an aggressive war 
for Texas, which is not ours. 

The most important objection to this annexation, the breach 
of treaty existing with Mexico, has been overlooked, and as 
there seems to be (judging from the public press), a very slight 
appreciation of treaty obligation among our people, I shall read 
a few clauses from celebrated writers upon this sulyect. First, 
a word upon the glory of a nation. Vattel says : " True gloiy 
is the favorable opinion of men of wisdom and discernment : it 
is acquired by virtue, or the qualities of the mind and the affec- 
tions, and by the great actions that are the fruits of these vir- 
tues." " It is then of great advantage to a nation to establish 
its glory and reputation." And this is done "by virtue," not by 
unjust extension of border. Again. " It is shown by the law 
of nature, that he who has made a promise to any one, has con- 
ferred upon him a true right to require the thing promised ; and 
that conse(iuently, not to keep a perfect promise, is to violate 
the right of another : and is as manifest an injustice, as that of 
depriving a person of his property. All the tranquillity, the hap- 
piness and security of the human race rests on justice ; on the 



106 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

obligation of paying a regard to the rights of others." " Nations 
and their conductors ought then to keep their promises and their 
treaties inviolable. This great truth, though too often neglected 
in practice, is generally acknowledged by all nations ; the re- 
proach of perfidy is esteemed by sovereigns a most atrocious in- 
jury ; now he who does not observe his treaty, is certainly per- 
fidious, since he violates his faith."' Not satisfied with his treat- 
ment of the subject once, in another place he returns to it again, 
" Who can doubt that treaties are in the number of those things 
that are held sacred among nations ? They determine the most 
important affairs ; they give rules to the pretensions of sove- 
reigns ; they ought to make known the rights of nations, and to 
secure their most precious interests." " The faith of treaties, 
that firm and sincere resolution, that invaluable constancy in 
fulfilling engagements, of which declaration is made in a treaty, 
is then holy and sacred between the nations, whose safety and 
repose it secures : and if people would not be wanting to them- 
selves, infamy would ever be the share of him who violates his 
faith." Chancellor Kent, the greatest jurist of modern times, 
says in his Commentaries : " The violation of a treaty of peace, 
or other national compact, is a violation of the law of nations, 
for it is a breach of public faith." " No nation can violate public 
law, without being subjected to the penal consequences of re- 
proach and disgrace, and without incurring the hazaid of pun- 
ishment to be inflicted in open solemn war by the injured party." 
And this, Mexico has in the most public and formal manner de- 
clared she will do in case we annex Texas, which she claims as 
part of her territory, and wdiich we have acknowledged so to be, 
by a solemn treaty on our part, containing promises of perpetual 
amity and good offices, besides an acknowledgment of boun- 
dary. 

Let us beware then, how we incur the imputation of bad faith, 
lest like the Carthaginians, we become a bye-word among na- 
tions ; as slaveholders and repudiators of debts, w^e are already 
well nigh infamous in Christendom, let no new title of bad emi- 
nence be branded upon us. Nor let us, because Mexico is weak, 
rest secure in our strength, for no man knows Avhat allies she 
may bring into the field. And even if not a single sword is thrust 
into the sides of my countrymen, our commerce may be cut up 
by privateers of all nations, sailing under Mexican colors, who 
are hungry from the long peace of the world for slaughter and 



SPEECH IN REPLY TO T. F. MARSHALL. 107 

plunder. But even if no physical injury should await our per- 
fidy, should not a generous magnanimity and a becoming shame 
restrain us from seizing on Texas, under a pretence of protection 
from England, whilst we gave up to Lord Ashburton a military 
pass-way from the colonies South of the St. Lawrence to the 
Canadas, when the very object avowed was warlike security, 
and when the land yielded, was voted by a unanimous Senate 
to be ours — indisputably ours. 

That a corrupt press should use the argument that because 
Texas was once ours (which is, however, by no means certain)* 
it should be now taken again by us, in spite of treaty obligation, 
I w^as not surprised ; but for one who aspires, here in the city 
of Lexington, and in the county of Fayette, to lead and give 
tone to public sentiment, to adduce this consideration to influence 
us, I must say wnth all respect to the gentleman, is unworthy 
of him ; [here Mr. Marshall interposed and remarked, that he Y 
had no pretensions to be a leader] ; very rightly, for although no 
man is more ready to acknowledge than I am tlie great interest 
which the gentleman, with a gorgeous imagery and most capti- 
vating declamation, throws around any subject he discusses, yet, 
indeed, it sometimes seems to be to him a matter of no import- 
ance which side he takes : and justice to the great interests now 
at issue constrain me to say, that there is no man in Kentucky, 
whose lead, in my estimation, it would be more difficult, as well 
as more unsafe, to follow. What is the substance of the argu- 
ment 1 I sell you my watch for a fair equivalent ; to-morrow I 
meet you on the street and say to you, this watch was once 
mine, it suits me to regain it — peaceably if you w41l — forcibly 
if I must ! Upon the same principle Spain may reclaim Florida ; 
France, Louisiana ; England, the United Colonies ; and we 
should be surprised on waking up some morning, to find our- 
selves pushed into the ocean, with not a foot of land to stand 
upon ; and yet barred the glorious Anglo-American privilege of 
even complaining : for the gentleman's argument and precedent ' 
w^ould close our mouths in eternal silence. It is equally vain to 
tell us, that Texas having been acknowledged independent by 
several nations, including the United States, we are thereby 
relieved from all treaty obligations, and may lawfully acquire 

* See a very able pamphlet styled " Thoughts on Texas :" New York. Sup- 
posed to be from the pen of T. Sedgwick. 



108 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

her. It is and has been our habit to acknowledge the govern- 
ment rf<?/«c/o; and the acknowledgment of the independence 
of Texas was therefore no breach of treaty, nor did Mexico so 
treat it ; for I am not apprised that she made a single remon- 
strance through her ministers, who were at all the courts who 
admitted Texan independence. But she now declares that the 
seizure of Texas is a very different affair, depriving her of a 
province, which she deems herself (and which the world also 
knows she is) capable, if let alone, of recovering. And is Texas 
really independent? I say she is not. In the very treaty of 
armistice entered into lately, she admits herself by express lan- 
guage " the Department of Texas." General Washington, 
though a mere agent of the revolted colonies, and not a direct 
representative of the sovereignty of the states, refused to receive 
a letter from the enemy, unless it had the supersciiption giving 
him his title, as conferred by the congress : such is the caution, 
with which a power really independent guards, even in word, 
her independence and sovereign dignity. But even the misera- 
ble traitor and madman, now accidentally marring the honor 
and prosperity of these United States, as reckless as he is, has 
virtually acknowledged the supremacy of Mexico, by sending a 
minister there to buy Texas, giving blank millions of dollars as 
an equivalent. So that all things preclude the idea of Texan 
independence, and what we now do, we must do with the fullest 
light : and if we sin, then we sin without a shadow of excuse. 

It is in vain for the gentleman to press the fact, that Mr. Clay 
wished to purchase Texas of Mexico, whilst Spain had not yet 
acknowledged her independence, for it is well known that Spain 
was utterly incapable of recovering her revolted colonies ; and 
up to this time she is struggling for existence herself, in the 
midst of the wildest anarchy and the most frequent revolutions. 
The gentleman must remember that Mr. Clay's opinions were 
never carried into effect, and cannot therefore at all become a 
precedent ; for what a nation may actually do, and what some 
individual acting in a diplomatic station may wish her to do, 
are entirely different things ; and I cannot but regard the gen- 
tleman's supposititous precedent as a virtual abandonment of the 
whole ground which he once assumed, and it would be ungene- 
rous to attempt further to force him from this harmless retreat. 

Having now considered this subject in its connexion with 
other nations and our foreign policy, a more important view 



SPEECH IN REPLY TO T. F. MARSHALL. 109 

remains to be taken of its influence upon ourselves as members 
of the American Union. And with regard to the annexation 
of Texas, if it did not violate public faith and bring on a ruin- 
ous war, it would be eminently injurious to the prosperity of the 
present states by carrying off our population and our capital. 
That England should seek to throw off from her over-filled hive 
her starving population, is both humane and economical. But 
it is our policy to encourage population, not to thin it out, for it 
is a plain proposition, that so long as we have more food than 
we can use, there is room for more mechanics, manufacturers, 
and artists ; and the greater the division of labor, the more per- 
fection in art ; and the more of all the luxuries tliat civilization 
affords, the more comfort there will be among all classes, if there 
is an equitable division of the proceeds of labor. Let us sim- 
plify this idea. If a farmer be thrown upon a deserted isle, he 
might raise corn plentifully, and to spare, yet need clothing and 
shelter ; if a manufacturer of cloth and maker of clothes should 
come, he could give him grain for his clothing, and both would 
be gainers: having yet corn to spare, if a house carpenter should 
come, he could give another portion for a house, and be still a 
gainer. So one after another could all operatives advantageously 
be received till the isle refused to bring a surplus of corn : and 
this would be the limit, and the only limit, that would be placed 
on the farmer's enjoyments, as well as upon the necessaries and 
luxuries of all the occupants of the isle. Suppose under the 
system of culture the farmer had adopted, he had supplied him- 
self with all the ordinary comforts of hfe ; but he yet lacked 
musicians, painters, and litterateurs, and other luxuries ; by a 
judicious invention of farming tools, and the application of suit- 
able earths and manures, he might largely increase his corn 
crop, till he would be able to supply these new comers, and at 
last no luxury known to men would l)e wanting. Thus, I say, 
that the only limit to the ^vealth of a nation is the point at 
which the earth ceases to afford food for the consumption of its 
people : up to that point, every accession of population, with 
corresponding industry and division of trades is an absolute 
advantage to the Avholc connnunity. America has not reached 
that point : she has not reached it by two centuries, and yet it 
is jjroposed in this treaty of the accidental President to pay ten 
millions of dollars as a premium to cause our own hearths to be 
desolated for the sake of building up Texas. It might well 



110 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

become us to pay our own debts before we undertake to assume 
the debts of the other states, who, by repudiation, have brought 
dishonor on our household. But what shall I say to those men 
who, denying the general government any power to rescue one 
of our own daughters from ruin, would levy a tax upon the hard 
earnings and exhausted resources of our people, to rescue this 
profligate child of a strange house from her self-willed abase- 
ment. 

And it is not ten millions only, my countrymen, we are com- 
pelled to pay, but whatever Texas owes. For, I contend that 
no agreement between us and Texas, can in the least effect the 
just indebtedness of Texas ; if we take her, we, like man and 
wife, become identified, and we must take her with all her in- 
cumbrances ; and if her debt amounts to fifty millions we are 
bound it to pay. No principle of national laAv is better settled. 
For although the rule of Napoleon was revolutionary, and the 
subsequent dynasty so declared it null and void, yet France 
could not quit herself of the debts and responsibilities incurred 
during his reign, and under the threat of war from Andrew 
Jackson, the French indemnity was promptly paid. If, tben, 
the subsequent government was bound for the debts of a dy- 
nasty which she repudiated, much more will America be bound 
for the debts of Texas, which is the same party that made the 
debt, still perpetuating its identity. I call upon every farmer 
and mechanic, and laborer, and professional man, here present, 
are you willing to be taxed for the benefit of the monopolizers 
of the lands of Texas, from which you receive so many inju- 
ries and losses, and from whose fields not a single orange or le- 
mon, or pound of sugar will pass your lips without an ample 
equivalent? It is in vain to tell us that the public lands of 
Texas are pledged to the liquidation of the debt ; for when you 
remember the extravagant grants of land held by individuals 
in Texas, embracing all the better portions of the country, and 
the millions of acres now in market in the United States, at low 
rates, is any one so mad as to believe that the whole burden of 
this debt will not fall immediately on us? 

I have said this annexation was revolutionary. The powers 
of our government have been widely misconstrued ; the state 
constitutions are vested with all power not reserved expressly to 
the people ; but far different is the character of the national go- 
vernment. It is an instrument of limited powers, and all pow- 



SPEECH IN REPLY TO T. F. MARSHALL. m 

ers not expressly granted, are reserved to the people ; it is a 
power of attorney, which they hold from the United States se- 
verally ; when it acts it must show specific words for action, 
else its action is null and void. They who contend, then, for 
Texas, must either show that there is a specific power to annex 
it, or they must show that its annexation is " necessary and pro- 
per " for carrying into effect some other power specially granted. 
I defy the gentleman, with all his known ingenuity, to make 
out any such a case. What then becomes of the splendid eulo- 
gies upon constitutional liberty, which he has so often in times 
past poured pathetically into our ears? Nor can he find refuge 
in that clause of the constitution which allows the admission of 
new states into the Union, for Texas is not proposed to be ad- 
mitted as a new state into the Union, but as a territory ; and it 
is by Congress, composed of a Senate and House of Representa- 
tives, that a new state is to be admitted, and not by the Senate 
and the President, as this treaty proposes. But even if Congress 
should undertake to admit it, there would be an equal assump- 
tion of power, for all the debates upon this subject, as reported 
by Mr. Madison, show that "new states" are meant to be the then 
territory of the United States, and not designed to include fo- 
reign nations. In the construction of instruments of limited 
powers, no rule is better ascertained by jurists, political and civil, 
than that the meaning of the words are not to be enlarged, but 
confined to the will of the grantors ; and when a latitudinarian 
construction is admissible by the words, and a close construc- 
tion also, that construction is to be given which comports with 
the general design of the instrument. There is not a man in 
this house or in this country who believes that the founders of 
the Constitution anticipated any addition of foreign nations to 
this Union. I admit that the acquisition of territory may be 
had by treaty, for it is necessary to exercise sovereignty in the 
disputes to be settled between nations, and as no state has pow- 
er to act in this capacity, it is manifestly a power belonging to 
the general government, arising from the clause giving ''neces- 
sary powers." 

When a controversy arises between nations about territory, 
they nmst either appeal to arms or to compromise; and it does 
often happen that it is more " proper " to buy or cede territory, 
than to appeal to arms. Thus the United States lately acquired 
and ceded territory in the Maine treaty. But these great state 



112 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

necessities must come up of themselves, the Senate has no right 
to make difficulties, in order to settle them. And before Texas 
can be taken under the treaty-making power, it devolves upon 
its advocates to make out a plain and palpable case of necessity. 
This they have not, and indeed, men of Fayette, cannot do. 
The case of Louisiana was not parallel to this ; yet he who 
made the treaty even denied its constitutionality. I acquiesce 
in the past action of the nation ; let Florida, and Louisiana, 
and Mississippi and Arkansas, and Missouri, receive all the se- 
curity and blessings of our common constitution ; but, at the 
same time I protest most solemnly against the precedent. Here 
was the mouth of the Mississippi, our highway to the great 
ocean, blocked up by a people actually threatening by arms our 
egress and ingress. No principle of national law is better set- 
tled than that a nation has a right of passage to the ocean, the 
highway of the world. This was a real and urgent state ne- 
cessity ; its amicable settlement was only to be made by a final 
and entire occupancy. Here the mighty Mississippi, bearing on 
its bosom the products of the larger portion of the empire, wa- 
tering the most extensive and productive lands of any river un- 
der the wide Heavens, was barricaded at its mouth. If we 
sailed securely through French batteries there, we met England 
in one of the straits of the Gulf, and Spain in the other, and 
were effectually blockaded once more. I cannot, therefore, but 
rejoice, that Louisiana and Florida are ours. In Pensacola and 
St. Augustine, we have two of the best ports on the southern 
portion of the continent ; and in the quick descent of our armies 
from the St. John's to the Lake of the Woods, through the Mis- 
sissippi, we may defy the world to the invasion of our southern 
coast, so long as we remain an vmited nation. The precedent, 
then, fails — utterly fails ! 

A war now exists between Texas and Mexico. The day 
that this treaty is consummated, we are at w^ar also. If the 
Senate and President can declare war, what a farce is your 
parchment of pompous restrictions and dialectical distinctions ? 
In vain shall the power of the Senate and the House be separat- 
ed, and the House only invested with the power of declaring 
war, if the Senate may, under the pretence of making a treaty, 
knowingly plunge us into war — bellimi jiagrans. If you sit 
silently by, and suffer all this, men of Fayette, in vain was the 
war of '76. If we have not secured constitutional liberty, then 



SPEECH IN REPLY TO T. F. MARSHALL. US 

have we obtained no liberty at all. If we have gained nothing 
by the representative system, by employing agents to carry out 
our wills in a prescribed manner, then have we gained nothing 
over the fallen republics of antiquity — if we are at the mercy of 
the caprice of a single President and fifty-two Senators, then 
are we slaves indeed, and may no longer boast of, but weep over 
our Colonial separation ! If the Senate may unite a nation to 
us to-day, she may unite us to a nation to-morrow, and merge 
our very nationality into the first despotism which shall l>e able 
to insinuate gold enough into their pockets to outweigh the 
patriotism in their bosoms. Yes, be assured that this is indeed 
a revolutionary movement, despotic in its character, and fatal 
in its results ; we are unmindful of tlie ilhistrious dead, suicidal 
to ourselves, and damned in the estimation of posterity, if we 
slavishly bow our necks to the yoke ! 

The gentleman has not acted with his wonted magnanimity 
in alluding to slavery ; he has already too many personal ad- 
vantages over me, to avail himself of any supposed unpopularity 
which may attach to me on accouiit of my opinions upon tbis 
subject, i flatter myself that I am able to maintain my position, 
irrespective of any aid arising from this source : but if the time 
and occasion were suitable, I should not fear to meet the gen- 
tleman upon this broad ground. He has not allowed me to 
forget that we once stood upon the same principles ; the letters 
of tliat gentleman to the Commonwealth in denunciation of 
slavery, have given him more reputation than all the other acts 
of his life summed up together. If we are now found moving 
in divergent paths, let the world say who has deserted the high 
way of right and enlightened patriotism. 

I trust that I shall never shrink from the stern and unwilling 
duties which an elevated love of country shall impose upon me. 
I shall not at one time indulge in honeyed tones of an exalted 
philanthro[)y and a self-sacrificing patriotism, to please the ear 
of mankind, but when the day of action comes, by my weight 
and influence deny the sincerity of my purpose. I shall not 
imdertake to denounce the gentleman, but I cannot forget the 
graphic description of the lamentable evils which he attributed 
to the introduction of slavery into the South, and his concluding 
"curse on the tyrant hand that planted this dark plague spot 
upon her virgin bosom." Let him render not to me, but to that 
God whose curse he has to-day denounced in an opposite direc- 
8 



114 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

tion, an account, for his instrumentality in now attempting to 
plant this same '■'■damning ci«'5e" on the unborn millions of 
Texas. If slavery was denounced by God on Ham and his 
descendants, then the blacks are not the legitimate inheritors of 
the curse, for, from the beginning of the world to the year 1442, 
Europe, at least, was free from negro slavery. Not till 1503 
vvere blacks seen in America. If the curse of God in this re- 
spect rests upon any portion of mankind, then, till within the 
last three centuries, it rested only upon the whites ; for up to 
that period the larger portion of the slaves of the world were 
whites. But I scorn to repel such an argument, better worthy 
of some cunning priest of the dark ages, than creditable to a 
statesman of the nineteenth century. I have formed no such 
degrading idea of God as this. My reason and observation 
teach me another lesson. 

I look abroad over all harmonious and lovely nature, and 
conclude that God has willed the enjoyment of all animated be- 
ings, and that he has provided room enough for even the black 
to enjoy " liberty and the pursuit of happiness." 

There is no portion of history that fills me with such feelings 
of solemn and despairing interest, as when the Athenians, in- 
dulging a most fatal indolence and self-delusion appropriated 
those revenues which sustained her navy and made her illus- 
trious in Greece, to theatrical amusements and idle shows, and 
denounced death upon any man who should dare to propose a 
law to restore them to the cause of the country, and the re-es- 
tablishment of the glory of her name. Though Philip sur- 
rounded her Avith armed battalions, and traitors infested her in- 
most sanctuaries, and gave the sanction of the betrayed Gods 
to the ruin of their country — the patriots of Athens looked on 
the impenetralile phalanx that was about to crush them to pow- 
der, and could not open their mouths to arouse their countiymen 
from their fatal security and apply the remedy that wooed them 
to touch and to live. 

I cannot, I will not, I dare not, submit to this morbid sensi- 
bility upon the subject of slavery, which strips us of our strength, 
and delivers us up naked and defenceless into the hands of our 
enemies. 

As a southern man, and in behalf of the south, I call upon 
the gentleman to know who has authorized him to place our 
safety upon any such self-destroying ground as he has assumed ? 



SPEECH IN EEPLY TO T. F. xMARSHALL. 115 

What, because the North will not lend herself to this crusade 
against other nations — this fiendish propagandism — this forcible 
extension of slavery among a people, now declared by Mexico 
to be free and equal — shall we be told that the south will sepa- 
rate, and with Texas, form a southern union ? Has the south- 
ern paradise, Avrought out by Mr. McDuffie, in his late senatorial 
speech, so won upon the imagination and affections of the gen- 
tleman, that he is willing to take the Lethean draught, which 
will sink all identity with the illustrious dead and living of a 
once glorious Union, and to appear in this elysium beyond the 
dark and damning Styx which eternally surrounds it 1 Wash- 
ington ! the just, the immortal, speaks to you to-night in his 
farewell address — he warns you against the terms north and 
south — he bids you brand those as traitors to all true libert}^, who 
would produce disaffection between these states, and boldly bids 
you ever to remember that the palladium of your happiness and 
independence rests in the eternal union of the states. Who shall 
dare to counsel us to its dissolution ? Have you counted the 
cost? Have you looked consequences in the face ? Have you num- 
bered the whites and the blacks of a southern republic ? Have 
you seen the indignant countenances of all Christendom turned 
towards you ? Have you heard their voice ? These American 
repudiators of their just debts — violators of treaties — these men 
who have disturbed the world with the cry of liberty, and caused 
blood in the name of equality to flow in every field in Europe, 
and redden every sea that surrounds her — they arc now the pro- 
pagandists of slavery — and the red and black flag of war is 
raised in its perpetuation and extension ! 

What do you ask of the north ? Have you the souls of men, 
and can you ask them to play the supple tools in any such mad 
schemes as this? I shall not say what they have borne from 
slavery. I would have them love us as brethren, not hate us as 
the most dangerous of enemies. I would calm their rising spirits, 
not goad them on to madness and revenge. No, I will not say 
what tlie north have suffered from slavery. Yet I thank God 
that the spirit of fi-eemen is not yet extinguished in their bosoms : 
nor Plymouth, nor Lexington, nor Bunker Hill, nor Trenton, 
nor Plattsburg, nor Erie, forgotten. Had they said less than 
they have said, they had not been fit compatriots for Kentuck- 
ians. Here is the letter of that world-known jurist, Chancellor 
Kent, and the speech of Albert Gallatin, the associate of Jeffer- 



116 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

son, at the New York meeting, men of other days, speak- 
ing as it were from the dead, they warn us to forbear — to stand 
by " the Union as it is." Where is Webster, and Everett, and 
Adams, and Van Buren, and Seward, and Greeley, and Wright, 
and Birney, and Morris, and Corwin, and Pierpont, and Long- 
fellow, and the other leading minds in politics and literature ? 
They tell us to stand by " the Union as it is." They say to us, 
" we have forborne till forbearance has ceased to be a virtue — ■ 
we must stop here, our courtly complacency will carry us no 
further — we cannot join in misfortune and disgrace." The ques- 
tion is no longer whether we have anything to do with slavery 
in the states now existent, but whether we shall anew, become par- 
ticipes criminis ; it is not, with Texas and a slaveholding Senate, 
whether we assent to slavery, but whether we ourselves shall be 
slaves ! The cry of other days comes back upon our slumber- 
ing memories, "Americans, liberty or slavery." This shall yet 
swallow up the murmurings of party — no more the name of 
Democrat and Whig shall be heard among us — ^Federalists, 
Jeffersonians, Abolitionists, Nullifiers, and all other designations, 
shall be merged into a single designation : on one side " Slavery, 
Texas, and disunion" — on the other, " Liberty and Union, now 
and for ever, one and inseparable." That day has not yet come ; 
but in the language of Adams, if come it must, I say, " let it 
come." Yes, I take up the language of the gentleman, (Mr. 
Marshall) and repeat, " let it come — let it come." 

I do not fear to trust the gallant sons of the wild and un- 
trammeled forest to choose my banner : and if my country calls 
me to the fight, it must be where virtue shall wreath the crown 
of triumph for the living, and glory consecrate the memory of 
the dead. 



LETTERS 

TO THE 

LEXINGTON INTELLIGENCER: 

WRITTEN DURING THE PENDENCY, BEFORE THE SENATE OF KENTUCKY, 
OF A BILL FROM THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

REPEALING THE LAWS OF 1833, 1840, AND 1794, 

'-• , '. • PROHIBITING THE SLAVE TRADE. 

1843. '". .' 



I have told, 
O Britons ! O my brethren ! I have told, ^ 

Most bitter truth, but without bitterness; • , . ' 

Nor deem my zeal, or factious, or mistimed', 
For never can true courage dwell with them, 
Who playing tricks with conscience, dare not look, 
At their own vices. Coleridge. 

Yet let US ponder boldly — 'Tis a base . 

Abandonment of reason to resign . ■ . 

Our right of thought — our last and only place 
Of refuge; this at least shall still be mine. 

Childe Harold. 

" Congress shall pass no law," &c., " abridging the Freedom of Speech or 
of the Press," &c. — Constitution of U. States — Art. I. Sec. I. — A. 

" That the general, great and essential principles of liberty and free govern- 
ment may be recognised and established : we declare .... that the printing 
press shall be free to every person who undertakes to examine the proceedings 
of the legislature, or any branch of government : and no law shall ever be 
made to restrain the right thereof. The free communication of thoughts and 
opinions is one of the inalienable rights of man, and every citizen may freely 
speak, write, or print on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that lib- 
erty.— Constitution of Kentucky— Art. X. Sec. VII. , 



LETTERS 

TO THE 

PEOPLE OF KENTUCKY 



No. L 

The six great Christian nations, England, France, Austria, 
Prussia, Russia arid the United States of America, are making- 
most extraordinary efforts, by specific and elaborate treaties, for 
the suppression of the slave trade. Our own United States, 
have just concluded the treaty of Washington, by which we are 
bound to keep a squadron on the coast of Africa, carrying some 
eighty guns, expending millions of money, and endangering 
thousands of the lives of our gallant seamen, to prevent this 
traffic, which tlie united suffrage of Christendom has declared 
piracy, and justly punishable with death. Proud and noble 
spirited Kentucky, after years of bitter and elaborate discussion, 
by continued and increased majorities, has solemnly declared 
to the world, that she would permit no more slaves to be 
brought within her borders ; thereby giving the strongest assur- 
ances, that she looks upon slavery as an evil, and that she 
would have no more of it; only permitting slavery to exist 
through necessity, in obedience to our Constitution and laws, 
and allowing the transportation of slaves out of the state, under 
the stern rule of self-defence, and social and political security. 
Now in the face of all these facts, the present House of Repre- 
sentatives — without any evidence of a change of public senti- 
ment — when the whole people had every right to suppose that 
this embarrassing question was settled for ever — when no men- 
tion of slavery was made during the last August election — 
suddenly and insidiously pass a law, opening deep wounds, not 
yet cicatrized, and again subjecting our beloved state to the 
influx of foreign degraded slaves, the refuse of cotton and 
tobacco plantations, the scourings of jails, and the scape-gal- 
lowses of yet more debased populations than ours — house- 



LETTERS ON THE SLAVE TRADE. 119 

breakers, poisoners, rogues, perpetrators of rapes* and midnight 
murders. 

The tide of black population, which under the law of 1833, 
and the more stringent amendments of 1840, was turned away 
from our land is to sweep with more than Etnsean desolation 
among us. The blacks are to hurry on to that fast approach- 
ing crisis, when they shall out-number the whites. The Elysian 
prospect of South Carolina civilization, wooes us in the distance. 
Each city, and town, and village, and cross-road, shall boast 
its magazine of arms, not to repel a foreign invader, but to 
crush domestic insurrections. The night owl shall arouse the 
timid female and the restless husband from their turbid dreams 
— the one to grasp in bitter mockery that Bible, in whose infinite 
promises of mercy and support, no vestige of hope or alliance 
can now be found — the other to seize those arms upon which 
he nightly slumbers, not with the vain expectation of success- 
ful defence, but with the desponding purpose of selling life as 
dearly as possible. 

To make way for this most glorious consummation, our free 
white laborers are to be driven out ; our manufactories, already 
too inconsiderable, are to be destroyed ; our cities are to crumble 
down ; our rich fields are to grow sterile ; our frequented places 
to be deserted. Our morals are to be still more corrupted ; more 
imiversal debauchery to exist among our male whites ; more 
mulattoes to stand as eternal curses, before the lovely eyes of 
our wives, our daughters, our mothers — most damning monu- 
ments of our self-abasement and crime, diluting the boasted 
purity of our Saxon blood, with those who, in our holy regard 
for the dignity of mankind, we will not allow to aspire to the 
common name of men. The flush of anger and petty tyranny 
is for ever to disfigure the bright faces of our httle ones. Edu- 
cation must perish among the people ; idleness and unbridled 

* During the discussion of the slave bill in 1839, Judge F. Ballinger told 
the following tragedy : " A respectable woman and infant child, were sleeiiing 
in the absence of the husband and father, with the window raised, in the sum- 
mer season ; a slave entered through the window and committed a rape upon 
the woman, killing the child in the struggle." Here were two offences pun- 
ishable with death. The miserable offender confessed under the gallows, that 
he had been " riui off" from Carolina for the identical offence of rape, and sup- 
posed that his fate would only be a new transfer to the far south. And these 
are the men who are to inhabit this most lovely land, to the exclusion of the 
Saxon blood. 



120 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

passions must characterize the rich ; poverty and contempt for 
labor degrade the poor. Our state must dwindle away yet 
more in political importance, till we shall become the contempt 
of mankind, with the only consolation that we most richly 
deserve it — blindly rushing into a secondary oriental civilization, 
to fall by the Yankee arm, as the multitudes of haughty 
Chinese, were mowed down by British power. And all this for 
what purpose? That a class of men whom the general go- 
vernment has just pledged millions of men and money to bring 
to the gallows,* may grow rich by feeding on the very life- 
blood of ovn- devoted state ! Is not this monstrous ? Are we 
already so infatuated? Has retribution so soon overtaken us? 
Have the Gods already maddened us for destruction ? Is this 
indeed the deliberate voice of Kentucky ? Has she made up 
her mind that her representatives should do this deed ? Is she 
not shamed by the gaze of Christendom ? Is she utterly 
blinded to self-interest ? Does she defy the stern mandates of 
religion ? Does she spurn all the experience of wise men, com- 
ing down to us from all ages, trampling under foot all that is 
redeeming in philosophical morality or Heathen Mythology ? 
Is the boundless universe spread out before her, and does no 
voice come up from its mighty depths in terrible energy, striking 
through the triple steeled bosom to an awakened conscience — 
there is a God ? Has she said with the fool in the fable, He is 
not God ? Has she with rebellious infidel France, dethroned 
Him ? Does she acknowledge with Jefferson, that He has no 
attribute by which He can side with her — and tremble? Or 
does she defy the Omnipotent God to arms ? 

No ! Kentucky has not done this. These men have slander- 
ed her fair fame ; they have dishonored her past history. 
Twenty years ago, here, in this state, in tears and sorrow be it 



* No moralist can or will discriminate between the foreign and domestic 
slave-trade. In Africa the slaves are already made so by native masters. The 
true African is far lower in intelligence and consequent sensibility than the 
American negro. The balance is against the home trade, so far as humanity is 
concerned ; as a matter of economy and safety the foreign is infinitely prefer- 
able to the home slave-trade. The society of Friends, in an address at Phila- 
delphia, 1839 says, " neither can we discern any material difference between 
the foreign and domestic slave-trade. Scarcely an evil is seen in the former 
that has not its parallel in the latter." It will be seen from the extract append- 
ed to the third No. of these papers, that the bill from the House of Repre- 
sentatives, repealed the law of 1794, against the slave-trade. 



LETTERS ON THE SLAVE TRADE. X21 

spoken, was struck the first blow at self-government ; here 
chains were first forged for the " toiling millions " (alas for the 
prostituted epithet); here the standard of liberty was first struck 
down. How? The despotisms of Europe, said man was not 
capable of self-government. We said he was. Why not ? All 
history proves it, said they ; democracies all end in the disre- 
gard of property, and consequently all social rights ; for without 
property is secured to the producer of it, there is no possibihty 
of social or governmental existence. Even savages, with their 
meagre effects, must have despotic chiefs for mutual protection, 
submitted to without appeal by the necessity of self-preservation. 
We admit, said Americans, tliat without security to property, 
there is no liberty, nor even existence. We also admit, that all 
previous republics, or rather democracies, ran to anarchy and 
suicidal destruction: but we have discovered a new principle 
of written constitutions, submitted to in times of peace and im- 
excited mind, by which, in times of excitement and popular 
rage, the weak will be protected, and the multitudinous major- 
ity restrained within the bounds of right. The ignorant shall 
not meet to govern in mass as in Athens or Rome; but we will 
clioose representatives, intelligent, honest men, who will act for 
the great mass, and justice shall prevail among all. The mul- 
titude will be corrupt, said Europe. The representatives will 
be assimilated to the lower mass, and cater to its prejudices and 
dishonest appetites, and ruin will come in the end. Yes, my 
country, this did come to pass. They, who cried out, "the peo- 
ple — the people." — "Democracy" — the "toiling millions," did 
tiiat which we so much feared would come upon us. They tram- 
pled the written constitution under foot — for what ? To take 
from the industrious, to give to the idle ; from the honest, to 
give to the profligate ; from the sober, to satiate the drunken ; 
from those who accumulated by the sweat of the brow, to give 
to those who sang in the sunmier months, and when the win- 
ter came, still wished to turn out the labor-worn, to dance by 
liis winter fire. Yes, Kentuckians, we had relief measures, 
stay laws, and constitution breaking, then. America looked on 
in tears, and despair ; Europe hissed and curled the lip ; and 
hugged more closely the chains of despotism ; and brightened 
yet more the bayonet : saying the masses were only fit food for 
gunpow^der. You rose up like a startled giant from )^our delu- 
sive slumber, and hurled these false gods from the temples of 



122 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

Liberty. Kentucky, yesterday, so fallen, to day, stood against 
the world; and all men said, "the honesty of the people is pro- 
ven ; liberty is vindicated ; let the Republic live for ever." 
Who then supposed, that, in twenty years, before another gene- 
ration succeeded, while the white heads of these patriots were 
yet lingering among us, in that same legislative hall, this ill- 
boding voice of " the j)eople,^^ " the democracy ^^'' " the toiling 
millions,^'' would again be heard, that our sacred Constitution 
would be again trampled in the dust ? Yes, the Philistines are 
again upon us. Go, mechanics ; cheat sleep of her hours of 
welcome nature sustaining repose; practise self-denial; know 
no luxury ; let untimely age succeed a youth devoid of plea- 
sure ; be confident ; let him who rides in chariots, and wantons 
with the summer flies, knowing no toil, keep your hard earn- 
ings. Fear not, you shall never have your own again, unless 
the lo'rdling's carriage brings ^'two-thirds of its appraised 
value." That time ?/iay 7iever come. But what of that ? Are 
not these lawgivers the people''s friends, the true democracy. 
Go farmer, and lal^orer, and ploughman, till the land ; rest not 
long under the summer's shade ; for the landlord offers large 
prices ; look with hope to the cheerful winter's fire, and well 
clad wife, and laughing children, and the plentiful board. 
Fear not, the landlord says, " go sell my land at two-thirds of 
its value and take pay for your corn" — that it may never bring. 
What, though the matron shiver in the cheerless cot, and the 
little ones cry for bread; the democracy are for the, '■'■ toiling 
millions.''^ They are "the people's friends." It is true, this is 
all contrary to old-fashioned ideas of honesty — true, it is against 
the precepts of the Bible — true, it is not in accordance with 
heathen morality — true, the Indian of the dark forest and the 
predatory Arab of the desert, would spit upon any one, who, 
with a grave face, would contend that this was right — true, it 
violates the Constitution, and sinks for ever the best hopes of 
self-government and true liberty — true, one sows and another 
reaps — true, one gathers and another scatters abroad — true, 
this subverts the foundation of all government, and in the end 
brings on despotism, bloodshed, and depopidation ; but — "we 
are the people's friends ; we are for the toiling millions; 
we are for liberty and equality." 

Now, if you were to see such a set of men, with such words 
of peace and good will upon their lips, and most consummate 



LETTERS ON THE SLAVE TRADE. 123 



robbery and del)ased injustice in their actions — is not this 
the very set of men that you would foresee would repeal the 
law prohibithig the slave trade ? Suppose that you were to 
hear men admit, that education " was the cheap defence of na- 
tions," that " learning was power," that intelligence was the 
only security for free governments, that the people were the 
foundation of all power, and Avithout education, that power 
would become suicidal, and freedom sink into anarchy and then 
into despotism. And suppose they were to profess to be the 
people's friends, and yet, when common schools were establish- 
ed to educate that people, these same men should cry out that 
common schools cannot exist in a slave state, and yet vote for 
the admission of more slaves, and do all in their power to make 
slavery perpetual. Are not these the very set of men that you 
could foretell would trample under foot the constitution of their 
state, and with the cry liberty and equality on their lips, would 
consummate their dishonor I^y repealing the laws prohibiting 
the slave trade, which the despots of Europe punish with death 
and lasting infamy? 



No. II. 



It is vain to tell us that slavery and the slave trade exist- 
ed before the authentic history of men — that all people have been 
infected with slavery — each enslaving its color and nation. 
That all this has measurably passed away, is an indication of 
liuman improvement ; that slavery yet remains among us in 
its worst form, is more eminently a reproach to us. The Egyp- 
tians allowed the Hebrews separate lands, houses and flocks ; 
only a part of the nation were under " task masters ;" and that 
part was mostly males. Though among the Hebrews them- 
selves, the father miglit sell himself or his children ; though free 
men were degraded to slavery, by being made captives for debts 
or for crime ; yet the time of Hebrew servitude was limited to 
six, and that of all other people made slaves, to fifty years — the 
day of universal emancipation returning every fifty years. At 
the time of emancipation liJDeral allowances were made to freed" 
men, so that at last it resembled more the English apprentice 
system, than American slavery. They were more lenient in the 



124 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

recovery of slaves, when runaway, than we. The Egyptian 
might escape to the temple of Hercules, and claim a discharge ; 
the Hebrew's house was an asylum to his neighbor's runaway ; 
and he could not be delivered up without the slave's own con- 
sent. 1'he Hebrew servant partook of the religious festivals 
with his master, and they were so numerous as to employ, in- 
cluding the Sabbath, nearly half the year. Among the oriental 
nations of Asia, surrounding the Jews, slaves were entitled to 
many of the posts of honor in households ; and in many states 
were capable of holding pubhc office ; slaves not unfrequently 
became — the women, the honored wives of potentates and mas- 
ters — the males, captains and vice-regents. The nations of Asia 
Minor, from the time of Troy and before, all those holding the 
Grecian mythological religion, allowed their slaves many privi- 
leges. That they were treated with great humanity may be in- 
ferred from the custom, during the feast of Mercury, of masters 
taking the places of the servants ; and thus being made sensible 
of the golden rule afterwards matured by the Christian religion. 
The people of Athens considered their slaves as occupying a 
more exalted position than free barbarians ; but this might arise 
from the same causes by which many are now moved to compare 
our own slaves to British laborers. At all events, the temple of 
the Gods was an asylum to the fugitive slave ; and the right of 
holding property and self-purchase, existed among them. It is 
certain that learning was common among them, and many of 
the most distinguished Grecians were freed men. 

The state of servitude among the Spartans was worse than 
that at Athens, as the Spartans were a more rude people than 
the Athenians. But even here they enjoyed a liberty unknown 
to Americans, for they could not be sold out of Laconia ; and 
their power, from tbe excess of wealth and personal liberty, ex- 
cited too often the jealousy of their masters, and gave rise, no 
doubt, to the cryptia— those cruel and sweeping murders which 
so much disgraced that republic. 

"With Roman slavery we are more familiar — embracing all 
nations, not excepting their own people, as well as the doomed 
Africans; which last, however, constituted a very small portion 
of the entire class. They had. it is true, the power of life and 
death over their slaves ; but they had the same power over their 
own children. They were allowed the use of money, and ac- 
cumulation of property, by custom and education. Self pur- 



LETTERS ON THE SLAVE TRADE. 125 

chase and emancipation were not uncommon. But the great 
numbers of slaves in Italy and the Roman province of Sicily, 
were the cause of unnumbered woes to the empire. 

England, Scotland, Ireland, Russia, France, the German 
kingdoms, all Europe, have held slaves and fostered the slave 
trade ; but the foundation of slavery has dissolved beneath the 
Christian religion and advancing civilization ; and the base tra- 
fic no longer disgraces these rigid governments, save, perhaps, 
Portugal and Spain. 

The Africans, also have, from time immemorial, held each 
other in slavery; but even here, to our shame be it said, it wears 
a milder form than in Christian America. Z. Macaulay, for- 
merly governor of Sierra Leone, before the British House of Com- 
mons, said, " I never was able to discriminate between the son 
and the domestic slave of any chief. Field labor is performed 
by free people and by the domestic slaves jointly and indis- 
criminately." 

The American Indians, also, in common with the barba- 
rous people of all countries, made slaves of their captives in war 
for short periods, when they were at length burnt at the stake, 
to appease, according to their superstition, the spirits of their 
own friends slain in war, or else were set free and adopted into 
the tribe ; no longer performing the degrading offices which were 
exclusively performed by the women. The Avild stoic of the 
woods could not steel his own untutored and savage spirit to 
submit to or inflict perpetual slavery. 

The Christian religion, has, at times, stood forth in its mighty 
purity, and stayed for a season the dictates of confirmed selfish- 
ness and inhimianity. Pope Alexander III., even many centuries 
ago, said, " Nature having made no slaves, all were alike entitled 
to liberty" — the germ of the immortal declaration of American 
independence. Yet even Christianity itself is shamed, in practice 
at least, by the imperfect precept of Mahommedan theology ; for 
the Turk will not hold in bondage a captive of the Prophet's 
faith. The odious distinction of having first initiated England 
into the African slave trade, is awarded to Sir John Hawkins. 
This took place in 1562.* In 1620 a Dutch ship first landed 
African slaves upon the banks of James River, in the colony of 
Virginia. Here, then, we can pause a moment, and draw the 

"Bancroft's Hiatory of the United States, vol. I., p. n^. 



126 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M, CLAY. 

melancholy conclusion, after we have traversed all tirne, and all 
people, of all religions, and all grades of civilization, that here, 
in these United States of America, professing to be the only peo- 
ple on earth free, slavery stands jpre-e^ninent in degradation. 
'Tis true that our laws make the slaying of a slave murder, 
and punishable with death ; but I will venture to say that al- 
though numerous murders of slaves have taken place, never 
has a single white man been capitally punished for this offence 
in any of the slave states. The writer of this article has rea- 
son to believe that he knows of three slaves who were slain 
by masters, neither of whom were ever punished. It is also 
true, that the laws insure, by word, that cruelty shall not be in- 
flicted, else the slave shall be sold to another ; yet never have 
we heard of a sale for such a cause. 

The contrast between American and Roman slavery, is fairly 
given by the Society of Friends ; " Philadelphia, 1839 ;" that 
sect of pure and practical Christians, who gave the first impulse 
to emancipation in America, who composed the society of which 
Benjamin Franklin was President, whose last official act was to 
petition congress for the suppression of the slave trade. They 
say : — ^" 1st. Negro slavery, as it exists in the United States," is 
aggravated by the difference of color. " 2d. The slave is held 
as a personal chattel, and in most of the slave states is liable, 
at all times, to be sold, removed, mortgaged, or leased, at the 
will of the master, or his executors, or at the suit of creditors. 
3d. The master may determine the kind, quantity, and time of 
the slave's lal)or. 4th. The master may supply the slave with 
such food and clothing only, both as to quality and quantity, as 
he may think proper, or find convenient. 5th. The master may, 
at his discretion, inflict any punishment upon the person of the 
slave, save power over life and limb, which exclusion is nuga- 
tory, as slave evidence is never taken against the master. 6th. 
Slaves have no legal rights of property, in things real or per- 
sonal. 7th. A slave cannot be a party before a judicial triljunal, 
in any species of action against his master. 8th. Slaves cannot 
redeem themselves ; and in several of the states emancipation, 
without removal, is prohibited. 9th. If injured by third persons, 
their owners only may bring suits, and recover damages. 10th. 
Slaves can make no contract, nor be party to a civil suit, nor 
be witnesses against a white person. 11th. The benefits of 
education are mostly withheld from the slave, and in some of 



LETTERS ON THE SLAVE TRADE. 127 

the southern states, to teacJi him is punishable as a crime. The 
means of moral or religious instruction are seldom or but spar- 
ingly granted him — (American Quarterly Review). 12th. No 
effectual provision is made to restram the slaves from the grossest 
licentiousness, by laws to encourage marriage, or other means. 
13th. Slaves escaping from their masters can be recovered within 
any part of the United States, by an act of congress called the 
fugitive law." 

Of the Roman slaves, on the other hand, it may be said — 
'• 1st. No particular color or origin marked him out for proscrip- 
tion. 2d. He was often allowed, by the master, to accumu- 
late property, called the slave's peculium, on which he traded for 
his own benefit. 3d. In the time of Augustus, the slave was 
heard, and his testimony admitted agaiiist his master. 4th. 
Their heathen temples afl^orded them safety. It was deemed 
an act of sacrilege to drag them thence. 5th. Many of them 
were carefully instructed, and imder the Christian Emperors, 
their spiritual tvelfare was not neglected. 6th. No laws existed 
against their being emanci[)ated or instructed. 7th. A large 
share of human happiness or misery arises from comparison. 
The severe Spartan discipline imposed vipon the free, made the 
sufferings of the slave to be less felt."' 

Is this contrast so flattering to Kcntuckians, that they shall 
honor the memory of the House of Representatives, when they 
shall have compelled us, by increase of numbers, to restrain the 
little liljerty with which we may now indulge our miserable de- 
pendents ? Do they look with evil eye upon that clause in our 
constitution, where emancipation is guarantied to all those who, 
not blinded by gross idolatry of "perpetual slavery," believe that 
a freeman is safer than a slave ? Are our towns and cities to 
be yet more infested by lawless bands of robbers and rufhans, 
wlio — under the specious garb of police assistants — shamelessly 
assuming a name for doing that which impartial history pro- 
claims that the wild savage of the woods would utterly abhor — 
in violation of the constitution and laws — spare from violence 
neither age nor sex, bond or free, so that they be guilty of a 
partially colored skin — under the desecrated pretence of reform- 
ing the morals of the toim 7 Shall the very foundations, I will 
not say of society, but of imperative self-defence, be broken up, 
and liynch law go unrebuked among us, under the infamous 
pretence that the laws are not sufficient protection for the citi- 



128 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

zens of Kentucky, a state that has, in days past, vaunted her- 
self amidst this glorious Union, for chivalry and honor? 

If these are the legitimate results of slavery, are they so flat- 
tering to those, who should imbibe inspiration from the glorious 
name and unspotted honor of our own native state, that their 
pride and self complacency are gratified? Are they so precious 
in the eyes of a statesman, that he would have more of it 7 
But yet, if slavery be " the foundation of liberty," then most 
surely is the corollary, that Lynch law is the foundation of good 
order and pure morals, most admirable logic, and the " Black 
Indians" most honorable men.* 

The bells from seven churches weekly toll in my ears till I 
am deaf with the sound, calling up the people to the worship of 
the Ever Living and Omnipotent God. No rakish Jupiter, nor 
drunken Bacchus, nor prostituted Venus, nor obscene and hide- 
ous Pan, rule the consciences of the illuminated people of this 
city and state — yet these scenes, which would have added fresh 
infamy to Babylon, and wrested the palm of reckless cruelty from 
Nero's bon-fire Rome, have been enacted "not in a corner," 
and the sentinels of Him whose " arm is not shortened," from 
the watch-towers of Israel, have not ceased to cry out, " all is 
well." If the illustrious Emmet could " look death and danger in 
the face," for a far off petty sterile isle, because it was his ho?}ie, and 
he tvoulcl have it free, — shall no one — for a far more glorious 
home, spreading from North to South, from far distant sea to 
sea, filled with every association that can move the heart,^ — 
attracting the eyes of all mankind — to whose trust is committed 
the fondest, and proudest, and dearest hopes of the whole human 
family — speak out also for his country. Though no Athenian 



• It may not be uninteresting to the prople of Kentucky to know, that the 
" Black Indians" are about seventy-five in number. On the clay of the election 
of the City Council for Lexington, 1843, a card from this band vi^as laid upon 
the tables at the places of voting, calling a meeting, and signed " Capt. Split 
Log'" — for what purpose? Because some of the blacks "had not paid city 
taxes.'" O, temporal O, mores ! and this during the free exercise of the right 
of suffrage ! 

Following the example of this slave-begotten moral code, a few days since 
in an adjoining county, a lawless band, with blackened faces and hearts, took 
Doctor W. from his home, in the night, aud lynched him nearly to death. For 
■what ? To gratify private and cowardly revenge, under the pretence of pun- 
ishing him for whipping hia wife, seven years ago,' which whipping the wife ut- 
terly denies. 



LETTERS ON THE SLAVE TRADE. 129 

trumpeter may hurry through the assembled and terrified peo- 
ple, in bitter anguish, crying aloud, " will no man speak for his 
country ?" yet from mute, and unresisting, and down trodden in- 
nocence, there comes up a language, no less powerful, to awaken 
whatever of sympathy and manly indignation may be treasured 
up in bosoms, nurtured on Kentucky soil — rich in associations 
every way calculated to foster all that is just, honest, and true, 
without which chivalry is a crime, atid honor but an empty 
sound! For them, once more, then, I denounce those who 
would, by legislation or otherwise, fix the bonds of '•'"perpetual 
^/atJery " and the slave trade upon my native State. In the 
name of those, who, in all ages, have been entitled to the first 
care and ultimate protection of men, I denounce it. In the name 
of those, who, in 76, like they who sent back from Thermo- 
pylffi the sublime message, " go tell it at Lacedemon that we 
died here in obedience to her laws," — illustrated by their blood 
the glorious doctrines which they taught, I denounce it. In the 
name of Christianity, against whose ever lovely and spirit-stir- 
ring sentiments it for ever wars, I denounce it. In the name of 
advancing civilization, which, for more than a century, has, 
with steady pace, moved on, leaving Cimmerian regions of sla- 
very and the slave trade far in the irrevocable and melancholy 
past, I denounce it. In the name of that first great law, which, 
at creation's birth, was infused into man, self-defence, unchange- 
able and immortal as the image in which he was fashioned, and 
in His name. Whose likeness man was deemed not unworthy to 
wear, I denounce slavery and the slave trade for ever ! 



No. III. 



The most lamentable evil of slavery is the practical loss of 
the liberty of speech and of the press. The timid are overawed 
by the threatening array of physical force ; the conscientious, 
who are naturally lovers of peace and good will, sink under 
])itter hate, and unceasing persecution ; the ambitious and 
spirited arc overwhelmed by the insupportable anticipation of 
sudden proscription, certain obscurity, and eternal oblivion. 
Thus truth ceases to be a virtue, and hypocrisy a crime; most 
severe retribution of the violation of nature's laws ; the hmbs 



130 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

of the apparent slave are fettered with iron, but the living and 
immortal spirit of the master wears heavier and more insuffera- 
ble chains ! 

Under this, the only intolerable servitude, how many noble 
and sensitive spirits have perished in inactive and despondent 
repose ! They knew too well that truth and justice were the 
foundations of glory, and like those who go out to battle in a 
bad cause, their hearts failed them and they perished. Was 
there one whose eye and soul were quick and sensitive to the 
sublime and beautiful in nature ? History said to him " liberty 
and poetry have ever been allied." Was there one who was 
moved by the grandeur of empires, the luxuries of wealth, the 
social refinements of civilization, the power of earthly rule — one 
who would have his nation great ? In slavery, he saw no ele- 
ments of strength ; a house divided against itself, sparse in 
numbers, indolent in production, wasteful in economy, dull in 
mechanic arts, debauched in morals, weak in purpose ; possess- 
ing many elements of gradual decay, and none of regeneration 
and renovation ; despair chilled the glow of patriotism, and the 
embryo statesman perished ! Where could the divine, the jurist, 
the historian, find refuge from this all-pervading curse, that with 
a triplicate force sapped the foundations of religion, marred the 
beauty and harmony of the sense of justice, and wrested from 
experience all the strength of its moral ? For such the land of 
slavery was no abiding place. Year after year they have passed 
off from the home of their birth, in mighty silence, among 
strangers, suppressing the agony of a lost home — an exiled 
country ; to wliicli conscience allows no words of commendation : 
pride no language of rebuke I 

Modern prudence would have pointed out to me, in the 
melancholy future, a similar fate, and have said to me, be wise 
—be silent ! But constitutional organization, and a large and 
living faith in the omnipotence of truth, and in the gradual 
improvement and perfectability of the human race, have led me 
to give utterance to the emanations of my own mind. Look 
there at the declaration of our illustrious sires : it is my birth- 
right : while life lasts no man dare, no man can rob me of it ! 
I now hold, as I have ever held, that here, in the slave states, is 
the legitimate and proper place for tlte consideration^ the discus- 
sion, the perpetual retention or the final eradication of slavery, 
I have ever resisted, as lever shall resist, foreign interference ; 



LETTERS ON THE SLAVE TRADE. 131 

they who hear none of the consequences of action, shall never, 
by my consent, act at all. But I must live or perish with mj__ 
country. All my interests, my life, liberty, and pursuit of hap- 
piness, and the interests of my nearest and dearest relations, of 
my friends whom I love, and of all the rest of my countrymen, 
between whom and myself for ever exists the right of mutual 
protection — all are bound up in the common word country. 
She has claims on me for my vote, for my opinio7is ; and though 
the humblest of her sons, when she calls for my help, whatever 
of physical, moral, or intellectual power I may possess, shall be 
freely exhausted in her cause ; and no human power shall, in 
the most minute manner whatever, influence me to say or act 
otherwise than my conscience, however false or unenlightened 
it may be, shall sternly dictate. The two previous numbers of 
this series of publications, w^ere put forth in accordance with 
these principles of action. The repeal of the laws of 1833, and — 
the amendments of 1840, in the House of Representatives, was 
one of those crises in which I dared not he silent. Its conse- 
(piences, in my limited view, were so utterly horrid and suicidal 
to my country, that I should in being silent have been for ever ^ 
recreant to all that is sacred in my own estimation. And even 
upon the subject of slavery, lying at the foundation of all our 
social and political institutions, I was bound by all considera- 
tions, human and divine, not only to speak, but to speak with a 
tiiorouglmess, and candor, and boldness commensurate with the 
occasion ; to probe the wound to the very seat of vitality ; to 
save by all hazards ; for failure was death, certain as it was 
horrible. Here was not the doubtful and debatable point of 
poHtical ethics, whether it was a matter of conscience for us 
] laving slaves, no matter whether willingly or unwillingly, to 
retain them still? Or whether, having them by purchase or 
inheritance, we could be forced by the Christian religion, or 
philosophical morality, to give up that which the original com- 
pact, the Constitution, guarantied to us and our descendants ? 
No, this was not the question. No ; the question was the 
original proposition, whether we, having full power and free 
will, with all the chances of good or evil clearly seen and illus- 
trated by history and experience, should aneiu determine, in the 
face of all mankind, to give sanction, in the most solemn man- 
ner, to African slavery. The question was, whether we Ken- 
tuckians, in the face of the action and denunciation of Christian 



132 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

Europe and our own United States, should, in the most formal 
manner, legahze the slave trade. The question was, whether 
we, after due deliberation and lepeated warning, had made up 
our minds, 7iot for ourselves onl//, but for our posterity also, 
that Kentucky should remain a slave state for ever ! Upon this 
subject, instinct, which sometimes grovels in the dark, flashes 
like lightning upon the dark paths of reason, and the crooked 
ways of blinded self-interest ; and its echoes rush back in tones 
of thunder— -o-o not for perpetual slavery ! Upon this subject, 
though I were bound to life by ten thousand more sweet and 
endearing ties than were they whom the wise warriors of Israel 
sent back from battle in the trying hour of mortal conflict, lest 
their hearts should fail thon, I would, with joyous enthusiasm, 
lay it down, and my parting spirit should be exhaled, in words 
which should be immortal among men, "^o not for jjerpetual 
slavery P Can it be that I wander, as a sick man in a fever 1 
And are these images w Inch seem to stand before me like rocks 
of adamant, the airy phantoms of an excited and diseased im- 
agination ? As the sick reach forth and touch a dear friend, to 
be reassured that it is indeed the one so much loved, I lay my 
hand upon my political bible — the immortal Declaration of 
Independence. I read its life-sustaining and soul-cheering pre- 
cepts — '■'■go not for jjerpetual slavery P Here, too, on my table, 
lies all that remains of one of the most remarkable men the 
world has seen ; a man born in the eighteenth century, concen- 
trating in his own person all the mighty developments of brilliant 
genius, with all the virtues which had before been falsely con- 
sidered to belong only to mediocrity of intellect. A great 
warrior, a great statesman, great in the successful defence of his 
country against the most powerful nation in the world, but 
greater still as the founder of the civil institutions of liberty 
among men ; believing in a pure and all- wise Providence ; prac- 
tising all the Christian morals ; yet of philosophic tolerance, and 
utterly devoid of fanaticism. A man eminent among his con- 
temporaries, who were themselves illustrious, foi calm judgment 
and profound wisdom — George Washington. His voice, in 
paternal tones of warning and undying tenderness, implores 
me, '■'go not for perpetual slavery P Again, I turn to him who 
was the author of a new political religion : a man eminent for 
his knowledge of men ; sceptical in his opinions ; a calculator 
of chances ; a nice balancer of motives ; so given to incredulity 



LETTERS ON THE SLAVE TRADE. 133 

as to question even the Christian reUgion ; yet a believer in one 
all-wise and omnipotent God ; a man in all senses of the expres- 
sion, "worldly wise" — Thomas Jefferson. I hear his voice 
of powerful denunciation, "^o not for jjerpetual slavery.''^ 
At last, I consult him, the greatest philosopher as well as states- 
man of modern times ; a man of whom it has been most proudly 
and justly said, "He wn-ested the lightning from the heavens — 
the sceptre from kings ; " a man of the coolest and clearest head, 
with a most dogged and stoical control over his imagination, 
his appetites, and his passions — Benjamin Franklin. By 
the most close, laconic, and convincing logic, he binds my intel- 
lect and senses in a net which human power cannot rend, 
impelling my action, "^o not for 'perpetual slavery''^ Yes, 
here lie upon my table, the parting voices of Washington^ 
Jefferson^ and Franklin — the greatest warrior, the acutest 
statesman, and the most profound philosopher, that modern 
times have seen — all saying to me in the most imploring, and 
convincing, and affectionate language, " My soji, go not for 
perpetual slavery and the slave trade.''' 

Kentuckians ! do you love these men? But yesterday, the 
Revolutionary Sword of Washington, and the Walking Staff 
of the venerable Franklin, — a present to his friend, the father 
of his country, — were presented to congress. Party strife per- 
ishes, the soul of a great Nation is stirred within her ; the hearts 
of the assembled representatives are melted down ; tears are 
stealing along alike the cheeks of age, manhood, and youth ; 
(he names of her illustrious benefactors are swelling up oceans 
of gratitude and manly resolve, and patriotic determinations in 
the bosoms of America's sons. Kentuckians ! you felt this 
scene; you honor, you reverence, you love these men: they 
have said on the subject of slavery all I have said, and more. 
I interpose their sacred persons between me and your uplifted 
arm, and dare you to strike. 

The same paper that bore to you my last number, bore also 
the good news of a conservative spirit in the Senate of Kentucky, 
and that the repeal bill was defeated ! My task is ended ! I 
retire to that privacy, where the public ban has placed me, for 
baring too boldly my breast to the shafts, which, piercing me, 
a connuon soldier, perhaps yet saved my country. There I 
shall remain till the same causes again call me forth ; when 1 
shall deem it my greatest honor again to stand for the defence 



134 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

of the vital interests of Kentucky, though I perish in the con- 
flict. My enemies declare me a factions and dangerous man. 
And though I shall, with an undaunted, and proud, and un- 
complaining spirit, bear all the full consequences of the calumny 
— I appeal from their decision to posterity, if my name survive 
me. I say that my action as a citizen has been, with one ex- 
ception, which I deeply regret,* eminently conservative. Hold- 
ing the same opinions which I now hold, and have always, on 
proper occasions, avowed, and which at no very remote period 
were held, and are now held by a great majority of the people 
of Kentucky, and which it was not then deemed treason to 
avow, so soon as I was eligible, I took my seat in the House of 
Representatives of Kentucky. There then arose, during the 
pendency of the Convention question, an effort to repeal this 
law 'prohihithig the slave trade. My honorable friend, the 
present speaker of the House of Representatives, for whom, as 
a man, I entertain sentiments of personal friendship, which I 
trust are reciprocal, although I have as little tolerance for some 
of his political opinions, as he has perhaps for some of mine — 
will bear me witness, that I then denounced the slave trade as 
boldly and, as some would say, as fiercely as I do now. I then 
declared, that if we had not the power, under the Kentucky 
Constitution, to sustain the law of '33, that I would go with 
hun heart and soul to hold a Convention for its change ; yet I 
went against the Convention in all its stages. Was not this 
conservative ? For four years more I was in and out of office, 
and I challenge all Kentucky to say that I uttered, by word, 
speech, conversation, letter, or print, one word upon the subject 
of slavery that was not approved of, in all respects, by all who 
knew me. Did this look like a factious spirit ? In 1840 (the 
citizens of Fayette, I believe, at this period at least, are prepar- 
ed to do me justice to beheve, when I say, once more), I had no 
share whatever in bringing the subject of slavery before the 
people, yet when it was up, with my opinions fixed beyond the 
shadow of a doubt on the justice and expediency of the policy 
which I advocated, I spoke with the freedom of a man, who, in 
the largest slave-holding county in the state, had made up his 
mind to bear political ostracism, rather than swerve from the 
path of duty and truth. 



The duel with Wickliffe. 



LETTERS ON THE SLAVE TRADE. 135 

The people of Fayette generously sustained me by their 
suffrages ; and in the Legislature, in spite of the pretended 
instructions which were sent me by a threatening minority, I 
sustained, to the best of my abihty, the instructions which I had 
received at the only legitimate place of power — the polls. In 
'41 the slave question was again brought up — not by me. I 
was first attacked through the press, and I replied through the 
same channel, in a manner equally free and undisguised as I 
now do. I was beaten in effect, although I most solemnly reit- 
erate that I believe that I received a majority of the legal votes 
of Fayette county ; but a man is a partial judge in his own 
case — let that pass. With all the aggravating circumstances 
of that election surroiuiding me — with a burning sense of injus- 
tice from slander and misconstruction, and from other sources, 
unusual and before unheard of, as they were unexpected and 
overwhelming, had I been a factions man, of selfish ambi- 
tion, seeing then and now little prospect of political regenera- 
tion, would I not have continued to trouble the waters which 
had submerged me, and have, if possible, Sampson-like, thrown 
down the pillars of the temple of social and political safety, 
burying my enemies in the common ruin with myself? For 
two years more I have held my peace ; and not till the repeal 
of this same law, was for the first time, I believe, in the last ten 
years, actually accomplished in the House of Representatives, to 
the sudden astonishment of all Kentucky, did I again come 
forth. Have I not stood against the bankrupt law, because I 
thought it not a conservative law. And, although I have sym- 
pathized in common with all humane men, with the sudden, 
unexpected, and cruel bankruptcies which have swept over our 
land like a summer cloud — has not my voice on all proper oc- 
casions been against it? And yet I am a factious and a dan- 
gerous man. The Judiciary is a conservative power in our 
government. I have met jmpular defeat to sustain the judges, 
by placing them, by adecpiate compensation, beyond the reach 
of l)ri!)ery and intimidation. Was this the act of a factious 
man? Relief laws have been agitated, which struck at the 
rools of that Constitution, which is the sole protector of slavery. 
1 stood by the Constitution ! Was that factious ? I voted for 
the law providing for the payment of the interest of the state 
debt ; and warred to the last against the restriction to two 
years ; and now, as I foresaw, our state is threatened with 



136 THE WRITINGS OF CA.SSIUS M. CLAY. 

practical repudiation, in consequence of a want of a conser- 
vative spirit in the g-overnment. Yet I ani denounced through 
the press, and threatened with violence, as hem(i, factious ! Two 
men were hung in our state without, and contrary to the law 
and the Constitution ; that, too, I did and do now, denounce ! 
Yet, I am o. factious and a dangerous man ! Seventy-five /at^^-- 
less men are now banded together, for unconstitutional and 
illegal purposes — through the press avowing their design to go 
on and through with it, as long as it suits their royal will and 
pleasure^in a state of open rebellion and anarchy, having al 
ready torn asunder the Constitution, the sole tenure by which 
the right to your slaves is secured, as a filthy rag and trampled 
it under foot with most consummate, cool, and provoking im- 
pudence. I denounced them in language that falls infinitely 
short of the deep and damning consequences of their action ! 
and I am blown through the city and county as a soiled feather 
upon the breath of an infuriated people. Yes, I am a factious 
and dangerous man ! The press is threatened with a mob ; 
my crime is so great that the innocent and patriotic editor is to 
be ruined in person and fortune, to atone for a constructive 
participation in the guilt of a dangerous and factious corre- 
spondent ! 

Let no man impute to me a vain-glorious spirit, when I say, 
that the writer of these papers has too much soul, to sacrifice, 
for his own ambition, far less, for his self-preservation, the hum- 
blest or the highest of those who may, in the most remote man- 
ner, have allied their fortunes with his. I only, myself am an- 
swerable for myself ! Yes, even to those, who, of all men living 
have the least right to know my name, I give it. 

Kentuckians ! I subscribe myself one of the humblest of those 
who would be the last to wound the proud and gallant state, 
to which he owes his being, his honor, and liis first and last 
allegiance. 

Cassius M. Clay. 



AiSNEXATlON AND SLAVERY. 



For the New York Tribune. 

Lexington, Kv., April, 1844. 
To THE Author of " Texas :" 

Sir — III addressing you through the press, I hope I shall not 
he thought wanting in courtesy. It does not beeome me to 
draw aside the anonymous veil which any good citizen may 
rightly assume in conferring with his countrymen, so long as 
he confines himself to principles and refrains from personalities ; 
yet at the same time, in replying to the arguments and reflec- 
tions set forth in a pamphlet headed '• Texas," it would be the 
most absurd affectation to seem to be ignorant that the author 
is yourself It was my fortune to have been a member of the 
Kentucky House of Representatives in 1836 with you, when the 
Convention was proposed to be holden. This project we both 
opposed, because, unless I very much misunderstood you, the 
public mind was not prepared for the only necessary reform — 
the Emancipation of Slaves. When no favors are to follow, no 
flattery will be imputed : allow me, then, to say that your 
course as a Legislator excited my admiration : already eminent 
as a Jurist, you seemed also to possess the necessary character- 
istics of a statesman — that boldness and self-elation which 
trampled under foot all the arts of the demagogue, and evinced 
a spirit which based its eminence upon the lasting ground-work 
of the public good. It has been, therefore, with great interest 
that I, in common with the American public, have read all 
the emanations from your pen. Like you, a private citizen, I 
profess to be operated upon by the same motives assumed by 
yourself— the formation of a just public sentiment, and the 
establishment of the honor, prosperity, and permanent security 
of our whole country. 

In venturing to dissent from one whose opinions are entitled 
to so much consideration, I shall not be regarded as presumptu- 
ous, for this cannot be a contest for supremacy, and whether 
you or I be the "better soldier," our object is equally jfttained, 
and our common standard, "Truth and our Country," shall still 



138 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

be borne aloft unsullied and intact. I know it is common in 
the nineteenth century to solve all great political problems 
upon economical principles. If man were a beast only to be 
fed, then to this course there could lie no solid objection. But 
when we regard our moral and intellectual nature, as^well as 
our mere physical well-being, then I contend that there are far 
weightier considerations than mere economics in determining 
any great national and social interest. When Agesilaus, the 
Spartan king, and generalissimo of the Grecian forces, held a 
public conference with the luxurious Satrap of Persia's wealthy 
monarch, arriving first at the place appointed he sat down 
upon the turf under the shade of a tree. When Pharnabazus 
arrived, his people spread skins upon the ground, of exceeding 
softness from the length of their hair, with rich carpets of 
various colors, and magnificent cushions. But when he saw 
Agesilaus, the mighty king and warrior, sitting merely upon 
the ground without any preparation, he was ashamed of his 
eflfeminacy, and sat down also upon the grass. Far distant be 
the day when Americans shall be less sensible to virtue, noble 
poverty, and true greatness of soul, than the minion of an 
Eastern despot ! 

Passing by, however, these appeals, though unhappily of late 
loo impalpable to the common apprehension, or too sublimated 
for the stern reason of modern statesmen, I shall follow the me- 
thod which you have laid down. I agree with you, then, that 
the annexation of Texas would injure the present United States 
by subtracting her labor and capital ; which it is admitted on all 
hands to be Avise, especially in a new country like ours, to increase 
rather than diminish More especially would it injure the cot- 
ton and sugar planter, by inviting more capital into the culture 
of those articles, which are already too plentiful in the market 
for the planter's interest. It would add to the burthens of go- 
vernment, by extending its laws and protection over very nearly 
the same labor and capital, spread over a greatly expanded sur- 
face of country. For if Texas be admitted as a slave state, 
and no other result is now anticipated, experience fully proves 
that there would be little immigration except from the slave 
states of America. For the same reason there would be no 
new consumers of northern manufactures, whilst dispersion 
would, according to well ascertained laws, weaken their capa- 
bility of purchase. The alleged fertility of Texan lands, 



ANNEXATION AND SLAVERY. ' - igg 

would be no equivalent for all these ascertained losses. I agree 
with you also on the other hand, that from Texas, allowed to 
exist as an independent state, we have nothing to fear. Be- 
cause, in the event of her becoming a free state, white labor 
could not compete with us in the planting business, and be- 
cause as a slave state she must ever be almost impotent in all 
respects. Having nothing to fear from her in an economical 
point of view, either as a planting or as a manufacturing state; 
either as an independent free or slave state ; neither can we fear 
her arms in war : this, surely, needs no debate. Nor can Texas 
l)e feared as a fulcrum of aggression for a more powerful hos- 
tile nation, as General Jackson would have us suppose : the 
absurdity of whose views you have so fully shown, that his opi- 
nions, where he is so evidently jaundiced, cannot have the least 
weight even with the men the least skilled in military defence. 
The scare-crow of England occupying Texas as a colony, or 
forming any alliance seriously injurious to us, you have fully 
exposed ; and we have her declaration, both in parliament and 
through her plenipotentiary here, that she disclaims any unjust 
interference in the affairs of Texas; and besides, we have the 
guaranty of our own potent, armed intervention, against any 
illegitimate consummation injurious to us, whether diplomatic 
or forcible. The assumption of Texas for the sole purpose of 
extending the bounds of the national dominion, with all the fa- 
tal lights of history beaming full upon us, is too absurd for re- 
futation, and can only be used for effect by the most reckless 
demagogues, which class of men it was not your, nor is it now 
my, purpose to address. As a measure of economy, as a means 
of defence, and as a mere extension of boundary, we both agree 
that Texas cannot be admitted. All those high moral and con- 
stitutional considerations which I have declined using for the 
present, are most certainly against its annexation. Every one 
would conclude, then, that we both would come to the same Q,. 
E. D. Texas, therefore, is not to be admitted. But no ! Set- 
ting out with the same data, granting the same postulates, fol- 
lowing the same method of demonstration, we come to utterly 
different conclusions — I, that Texas ought not^ ivill not, and, so 
far as I form an integral portion of the national power, shall not 
be annexed — you, that she ought not, perhaps, yet will, and so 
far as you are concerned, shall be allied to us ! If I am right, 
you are wrong — if you are right, then is the American people 



140 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

Stultified and dishonored by your own showing. For, if pecu- 
niary interests, good pohcy, and good faith lead them to abstain 
from Texas, then no " insatiable craving for good land " ex- 
cuses their rapacity, nor any "determination rightfully or 
wrongfully to have it," evidences their wisdom or conceals their 
dishonor. What terrible power is this, then, which, overriding 
all considerations of moral and material interest, determines us 
to seize on a foreign nation, and, in spite of the faith of treaties, 
the feelings and wishes of a majority of the nation, in violation 
of the national constitution, and at the hazard of the dissolution 
of the Union, "wrongfully" to appropriate it to ourselves? 
You are constrained to make the humiliating confession — it is 
slavery, which makes the " south desire the annexation, though 
contrary to her interests, and the north to refuse the alliance 
though contrary to her interests." But here you seem to contra- 
dict your previous showing, that the admission of Texas would 
be injurious to the north. And it may be farthej- safely said tliat 
no monopoly of trade in Texas secured to the north by alliance 
can compensate her for her losses by the perpetuation of slave- 
ry, which Texas, at least for some centuries would probably in- 
sure. For we are consumers, not mostly because we have 
slaves, but because we are planters ; and every slave made free 
is so much the greater consumer of northern manufactures, as 
an intelligent, educated freeman, produces more to give in ex- 
change than an uneducated slave. Add to this, that by eman- 
cipation the whole class of masters is added to the producing 
class, instead of being merely the agents of the consumption 
of the fruits of others' labor. 

Am I right, then, when I plant myself upon physical well- 
being, and say Texas cannot be admitted ? Am I right, when 
I stand upon the faith of treaties, and declare, she ought not to 
come in? Am I right, even if Mexico assent to the union, when 
I interpose the bulwarks of the Constitution, and proclaim that, 
till these shall be leveled to the ground, she cannot be ours ? 
Am I right, when I gather about me all the glorious principles 
and hallowed associations which illustrate the American name, 
and confess, that all these must perish, before Texas can 
become one (or more) of these United States ? Then no more 
of this inexorable necessity — this ill-omened "must !" It is the 
command of a superior to an inferior — the language of a king 
to his subjects — the voice of the master to the slave. We are 



ANNEXATION AND SLAVERY. 141 

yet free— the day on which Texas must be wedded to us — the 
day on which, as you seem to anticipate, she shall be thrust 
upon us — we are free no more ! In Kentucky, the gross popu- 
lation may be set down at 800,000 ; 31,495 only, the Auditor's 
books show to be slaveholders ; not one in four or five, as 
estimated by you to be the ratio in the five states of Maryland, 
Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri, but one in twenty- 
jive only, is a slaveholder ; and this is probably the ratio in all 
the five states named, the number of slaveholders decreasing as 
you go farther South.* To this insignificant minority we have 
sacrificed common schools— we cannot sustain them ; the 
supremacy of the laws — it has not been vindicated ; the national 
and state constitutions — they have been trampled under foot ; 
liberty of speech and of the press — there is not a despotism in 
Europe that has less than we ; a navy — it cannot be ours ; 
manufactures — they are impossible with slave labor; all the 
arts and sciences, the useful and ornamental— they perish here ; 
the Christian morality, — "the salt has lost its savor"- — high 
intellectual development, such only as can exist where the 
spirit is free in its fliglus and untrammeled in its utterance — 
slavery, like the fabled Stygian lake, paral3^zes the wings of 
genius — dread, gloomy and remorseless, she suffers none — none 
to escape — each victim but adds more and more to that noxious 
atmosphere which infects her inhospitable shores, making her 
very weakness, exhaustion, and decay, her impregnable defence. 
Have the less than one in twenty-five, to say nothing of the 
entire ten millions of the North, imposed upon us all these 
sacrifices, and do they now come on once more with that 
everlasting word '■'•mustT Surely, this is unworthy of us ! or 
else are we most unworthy of our patriot sires. If slavery has 
already grown so great that you are forced to cry out, " It is 
time for every statesman, wherever located, to look it full in the 
face ;" is it not, then, also become too large for compromise ? 
Nay, is not the institution in itself incapable of compromise? 
When, out of the original thirteen states a new government 
was formed to "establish libert}^" the compromise was to reduce 
slavery gradually to extinction— read the Madison Papers and 



' The London Non-Confonnist, of April 3d, gives the number of slaveholders, 
and those inieresled iu them, at 32,700, iu a pojiulation of O'OOjOOO, iu South 
Carolina. 



142 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

deny it ! Search the Constitution for the word " slavery " in 
vain, and deny it ! When Kentucky, and Tennessee, and Ala- 
bama, and Mississippi, were successively taken hito the Union, 
it might seem that slavery should have rested satisfied for 
ever— the wide bounds of constitutional empire, were they 
verge enough for slavery ? No ! then comes Louisiana, and 
hard upon her footsteps, Florida hastens to the sacrifice. 
Louisiana, and Arkansas, and Missouri, acknowledge the de- 
vouring appetite of slavery — and is she yet content? — does 
she abate any what in her demands? No. She knows too 
well that liberty and slavery cannot exist under the same 
government ; and with an unerring instinct she hastens us on 
to enlarge her dominion, growing more openly rapacious and 
shameless as she feels that she has less to fear from the slum- 
bering and perishing friends of liberty and equal rights. Texas 
spreads out her "banks and braes" in the distance, and the 
"insatiable craving" of slavery hurries us once more, at "the 
price of blood," if necessary, to its acquisition. And yet, in 
view of all these facts, you would give her "the eastern part of 
Texas, another single slave state," for a compromise ! Suppose 
her safely enthroned in Eastern Texas, and she scents once 
more the orange groves of Western Texas, exciting again her 
" insatiable craving "—I ask you, with all the fearful energy of 
self-defence, what new guaranty for the preservation of the 
compromise do you offer us ? Can you suppose that the few 
half-starved negroes who should find their way to this new 
colonization Elysium would oppose their westward progress? 
Can you bring any new constitutional or moral barriers more 
strong than those which already oppose the dreadful '■^musV in 
vain ? Will the addition of three or five slave states, by giving 
slavery preponderance in the Senate, strengthen the defences of 
constitutional liberty, and oppose more effectual barriers to the 
expansion of the limits of servitude, than a senatorial equahty 
can now do? Have not the mad projectors of this fatal scheme 
already proclaimed from the high sanctuary, the inner temple, 
of the world-wide republicanism, the American Senate, that this 
whole continent is, or should be, ours ? Aside from this, could 
a free black colony exist alongside of slaveholding Texas ? — 
would not the slaves flee to it from oppression? — and would 
the colonists return their black brethren once again into bond- 
ao-e? and would not a Texan invasion be the sure conse- 



ANNEXATION AND SLAVERY. 143 

quence? Can all the power of the Union now shield the 
haiborer of the runaway slave from vengeance ? — did it protect 
the Cherokees of Georgia or save the tribes of Florida from 
extermination 1 — would a miserable black colony fare better, in 
a word, than native, free-born, wdiite American citizens have 
done ? The idea, then, of a free black colony alongside of 
slaveholding Texas, with due deference to your more mature 
reflections, I pronounce absolutely absurd and impossible. 
Louisiana, Arkansas, and Missouri, I am willing to recognise as 
states possessing equality with the rest ; I submit to the past 
decision of the nation ; at the same time I most solemnly protest 
against the precedent, and deny the constitutional possibility of 
the annexation of new slave states to this Union. Let slavery 
subside into its constitutional limits — I stand by the Constitu- 
tion. If, in the dread necessities of coming time, Americans 
shall, like the Spartans, in a night thin out Americans, as you 
intimate, let not this blood be upon our garments — not for all the 
cotton and sugar which, since creation's dawn, has grown on the 
green earth beneath the dewy heavens, would I have posterity 
of mine look upon this '• sorry sight." Let the aspirations of 
Kentuckians ascend in gratitude to the Father of Destiny, that 
our own loved native state is subject to no such miserable slave 
growing cotton and sugar necessity as this ! Maryland, Virgi- 
nia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri must then, as you say, 
soon become non-slaveholding states. J. Q,. Adams thinks that 
the slave trade cannot be suppressed till Africa is Christianized, 
and the supply of slaves cut off. I, with great deference, 
contend that the market must be destroyed before the trade can 
be suppressed. Do you stop the vent for slaves from these five 
states by taking in Texas ? No. Then never let these states 
take in Texas. No, we must stop here — now ; the time grows 
stringent, fearfully pressing. Americans, hberty or slavery? 

" Under which king, Bezonian? sjjcak, or die !" 

I am firmly of the opinion that you are mistaken in the sup- 
posed necessity of colonization ; all additional expense and com- 
plicated arrangement for the disposal of emancipated blacks, I 
regard as so many obstacles to doing any thing ; it but adds 
new links to a "lengthening chain." Free blacks are not a tax 
on the north, as " we have been taught to believe" — they would 
be a better class here, because of the climate. Whenever Ken- 



144 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

tucky moves in earnest on this subject, as move she will — the 
great mass of slaves will be removed and sold elsewhere. There 
will not be more left than we will be glad to employ in such 
menial offices as they now fill ; where they will not be at all in 
the way of that increase of intelligence and provident labor 
which adds so much to the substance and glory of a people. 
The time has passed when we are to console ourselves with 
vain reflections upon northern abolitionists ; the time has come 
when we are to regard not names but things ; not inquire what 
one may be called, but whether he be rigid. Is not all injus- 
tice retributive? And while we join in feeding the false and 
morbid appetite of pro-slavery men, by denouncmg abolitionists, 
do we not place the very obstacles in the way of progress of 
which you so bitterly complain? If a wayfarer say to me, 
" You rascal ! get out of the way, that steam-car will crush 
you !" shall I shut my eyes and in blind obstinacy, be crushed? 
Or shall I not rather first save myself, and then nurture my gra- 
titude or vengeance for a fit opportunity of manifestation ? If 
the former course be folly in a single individual, how much more 
should a great state be ashamed to practise such absurdities ! 
And the statesman who dare not meet and expose them is more 
a coward than he who shows his back to his country's invaders. 
I conclude, then, that the bounds of American slavery should 
not be enlarged — that the five middle slave states, as you say, 
will not alloiv the dissolution of this Union ; we are a nation, 
and nothing but revolution can sever us; there should be no 
new slave state added to this Union ; slavery will be abolished 
in the district of Columbia ; the noith will by the ballot box 
drive slavery into its constitutional limits, the present thirteen 
slave states, and there leave it to ourselves, to our consciences, 
and to destiny ; all the non-cotton-grovving states will, by peace- 
able means, free themselves from slavery. Kentucky will be 
among the first to take the lead ; this will be done by first gain- 
ing supremacy in the legislatiue, then by calling a convention, 
and at last, by legal emancipation, which will be easy and 
light, as many slaveholders, with their slaves, will have been 
removed from the state. When seven southern states shall be- 
come free, slave representation will be abolished ; and this, in 
coiijunction with all the rewards of political promotion and the 
spirit of the age operating upon the ambitious and the virtuous, 
will induce the sacrifice of slavery even in the cotton-growing 



ANNEXATION AND SLAVERY. 145 

States, or else the extinction of one or the other of the races in 
all that region; and, at last, our land will be redeemed, and 
liberty and union shall reign supreme among us. If there be, 
indeed, as you say, a majority of slaveholders with us in our be- 
lief that slavery ought to and must fall, I solemnly commend 
my plan and yours to their calm consideration, and most cheer- 
fully exclaim, " God save the right ! " Thus far only I must 
for ever dissent : I cannot but regard the annexation of Texas 
to this nation as treason against the republic, the virtual revo- 
lutionary overthiow of the American government ; and so es- 
teeming it, should arms be opposed to arms, as Gen. Hamilton 
vauntingly threatens, on the part of the land of '• all the chival- 
ry," I shall not hesitate to strike for the constitution transmitted 
me as my bnthright, from a gallant ancestry. Here, in this 
Texan Thermopylae, we must take our gi-ound ; here some of 
our countrymen must stand — ay, and if the worst comes to the 
worst, must fall, too — or else no Marathon shall ever bring 
glory, safety, and liberty, to our homes. 



10 



REVIEW 

OF THE 

"PHILOSOPHY OF SLAVERY, 

AS IDENTIFIED WITH THE 

PHILOSOPHY OF HUMAN HAPPINESS. 

AN ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT SHANNON, 

TO THE FRANKLIN SOCIETT OF BACON COLLEGE, KT., 

2nh JUNE, 1844.*" 



I. 

Nature has not designed, nor are we so unreasonable as to 
expect, every man to be a martyr. We do not blame even a 
professed follower of the self-sacrificing and uncompromising 
Author of our faith, for not making open war upon slavery, 
when his bread may be stopped and his character and person 
exposed to continual attacks. There may be deep and silent 
longings for the true and the right, a well of undying charity 
and love in the heart's core, and yet the importunate cravings 
of the flesh may bend the crushed spirit to its unholy ministry. 
There is in negative characters, who fail to reap the pleasures 
of lofty virtue, something which requires us to withhold the 
pains of censure. Even in crime there is much to commiserate, 
and a sense of our own frailty should ever make us an indulgent 
judge. Give us a bold, daring villain, a shameless cut-throat, 
a stern scorner of the right, a follower of all-conquering passion, 
a man owning allegiance to neither men nor gods, we shall 
wonder if we cannot defend, look on the chaotic elements of a 
possibly great character, and mingle some sentiments of admi- 
ration with unpitying horror and inexorable vengeance. 

But a cold, calculating hypocrite, a puling, canting defender 

* This address is publislied in the Christian .Tournal, Harrodsburgh, Ky., 
and largely circulated in extras for political effect. It has been ably re- 
viewed by some one of the same sect, and I believe is by no means approved 
of by most of that large and respectable class of Christians — the Reformers. 



REVIEW OF PRESIDENT SHANNON. 147 

of the wrong, a moral assassin, an emasculate who without 
passion steals upon unsuspecting virtue, and prostitutes her to 
other men's uses ; one who pursues evil for its own sake without 
hope of reward, or sense of remorse ; not entirely a beast, because 
knowing sin, yet not man, for lack of soul enough to damn the 
body — what shall be said of a thing like that ? I put it to the 
calm response of every honest man, if there be aught in nature 
that moves our indignation, and so cries aloud to all mankind, 
by all the quickened virtues of nature's great first law^ — beware ! 
Let no man misunderstand me : I come to denounce not men, 
but measures ; not individuals, but classes. The President of 
this College is, so far as I know, an amiable gentleman. I shall 
not say that he is not a Christian, in its ordinary acceptation 
among men ; but he has volunteered against the best interests 
of mankind, is warring against all that is vital in religion, or 
valuable in morals, committing treason against republicanism, 
shutting off the light of peace, justice, and mercy, from the 
earth, and filling the future with impenetrable gloom and utter 
despair. He shall go down with the curses of millions to the grave, 
and his name shall be a by-word of contempt and infamy, or 
rot for ever from the memory of men ! The great and good, 
even among the heathen, taught that Liberty was the greatest 
boon of the Gods to men ; and the youth of all countries went 
up to this temple of glorious faith, and learned to become heroes 
among nations. The man who in this repubhc undertakes to 
teach the young to be slaves, can hardly hope to stand against 
the just resentment of those who believe, that the American 
Declaration of 1776 is not a lie, and the Christian religion not 
a cunningly devised fable, full of promise to the lips, but filling 
the soul with poisoned drugs of bitterness and woe ! 

This address is delivered before the " Franklin Society." The 
true "Philosopher" should have been spared this cruel irony, 
and covert insult. Franklin was the friend of liberty ; be be- 
lieved a Christian defender of slavery worse than a Turk, and 
has given utterance to some most withering sarcasms upon the 
"Philosophy of Slavery," which I commend to the sapient 
President and Iiis pupils. I know nothing so mal-apropos as 
the association of this address with the name of Franklin, unless 
it be Featherstonhaugh's slave-trader, who wore a huge fold of 
black crape upon a great white hat, in memory of Lafayette, 
the martyr of freedom ! 



148 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

The first four columns are taken up with an elaborate argu- 
mentation to prove tlie very recondite truth, that every one 
desires to be happy, and that the way to be happy is not to vio- 
late any of those laws of our being which produce happiness ! 
Having come to this broad and deep foundation, through much 
delving into the dark and hidden recesses of unwilling nature, 
who only reveals herself to the enlightened few, the ingenious 
President, I know not by what strange and unheard-of associa- 
tion of ideas, builds up the great superstructure, "The Philosophy 
of Slavery as identified with the Philosophy of Human Happi- 
ness." It would, perhaps, be enough to proclaim to all the 
world, that the President, so far as we are informed, has not 
submitted himself, his wife and children, to unconditional servi- 
tude ; but it may serve a purpose, by displaying the utter inanity 
of this Sophomorean address, to make falsehood and crime 
ridiculous as well as hateful to men. 

"All the misery on earth originated in self-will, prompting 
the violation of law ; " the President has before stated, that no 
man " wills " his own misery ; there is, therefore, an absurdity 
truly exquisite in saying, that all his misery arises from his ivill 
(self-will). The foundation of this theory is not only absurd, 
but false. We have every reason to believe, that man is now 
essentially what he was from the beginning ; and every man's 
observation teaches him, that the great mass of misery is entirely 
independent of his will altogether. Hunger and thirst, cold and 
heat, and disease and death, (to say nothing of the pains of the 
mind, which might require some reasoning to produce convic- 
tion, such as two men's loving the same woman) are surely not 
the creatures of the will, or, if the learned gentleman prefer, of 
" self-will." Nor wall the President mend the matter by running 
back to Adam ; it is " with philosophy, not with theology," 
that we have to do — for all animals, without exception, are sub- 
ject to necessary evil ; had they too their Adams ? If self-will 
be the cause of all misery, in the sense in which it is here used, 
then take away self-will, and man is inevitably happy. Yet 
men are so short-sighted as to object to solitary confinement for 
life, as not only undesirable, but as absolutely insufferable — - 
perhaps the strongest case possible when a man is most com- 
pletely deprived of self-will in practical life, save in the Elysian 
state of slavery ! The Presiderit's logic is only surpassed by his 
gallantry. Now it is unfair to bring lovely woman to his help j 



REVIEW OF PRESIDENT SHANNON. 149 

by all that is sacred in common-place, let Eve rest, for if she is 
brought into the field I am undone ; here is a case where self- 
will does lead men into perpetual slavery. Again, " there is no 
created being on earth to which man could be made subject." 
Then is slavery impossible, as well as foully icrong ; and here 
is an end of the argument ! If '•' children were placed in Ijondage 
to their parents, to arrest the ruinous tendency of ignorance and 
self-will," by what "philosophical" deduction from Adam's fall 
is a kitten put in bondage to its parents, who gather it by the 
nape of the neck, and bear it where they list? and pray, what 
ruinous tendency is arrested in the little blind creature ? 

Is not this worse than contemptible ; shall such stuff' flow 
from the head of a learned institution under the huge name of 
"philosophy," without a horse laugh as loud as the Katskill 
thunder Avhich aroused Rip Van Winkle from his sixty years' 
sleep of universal stupidity? I pass over the three or four co- 
lumns vindicating slavery from the Bible : my province, I repeat, 
is with philosophy, not with " Theology." I may be allowed to 
remark, however, that the Old Testament may prove any crime 
under the sun to be right, by a similar process of specious rea- 
soning from isolated examples. We are not Jews, but Chris- 
tians, and I say, without fear of contradiction, that there is not, 
and never has been a code of ethics so full of liberty and equal- 
ity as the Christian. Let the professed become the real follow- 
ers of Christ, and slavery falls in an hour. 



II. 



The President has ventured into the same shallow water, 
where so many minds of small tonnage have before stranded. 
Because Christ did not by special command in all cases de- 
nounce slavery, therefore it is right. The instance given by 
Thomas Clarkson, of the gladiatorial shows (which none will 
now defend, and which were not by name forbidden, though ex- 
isting at the time ; yet the spirit of the gospel reached them and 
they perished before the spread of its precepts) is one of many 
cases which it is useless to cite. The truth is, if all the actions 
of men were to be specially commanded or denounced, so far as 
moral good or evil is involved, the whole of Bacon College 



150 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

would not contain the volumes of the Christian law ; and a 
man in a long life time would not be able to read the one 
thousandth part of them ! See the untold books of temporal 
institutes and precedents, and yet the profession can hardly 
find in a life time of practice an actually occurring case in exact 
point with the written la\v^ No, the great principles of the 
Christian morality are laid down, and reason and conscience 
must apply them to individual cases. 

When the deists of the American revolution proclaim slavery 
a curse — when all civilization denounces it — when a cold phi- 
losophic statesman, Lord Palmerston, speaks of it as evolving 
more sin and misery than all other crimes from the beginning 
of the world — when the same language is echoed by the princi- 
pal statesmen of all nations — when our own country gives us 
so terrible an example of its influence upon morals, intelhgence, 
and economical interests — your argument is vain — your cause 
must be lost. Yes, if by any forced interpretation of the Scrip- 
tures the belief shall prevail that Christianity sustains slavery, 
then shall its once glorious and sacred temples be hurled into the 
dust ! Let the priesthood beware, it is a critical posture for the 
church to be behind the morals of the world. If France was 
desolated, as is contended, by " self-will," and crimes perpetrat- 
ed, in the name of Liberty, and Infidelity, it was because the 
insufferable and infernal corruptions of the professors of religion, 
and the prostitution of its sanctity to the defence of the most pal- 
pable abuses of civil government, had rooted out all reverence 
from the minds of men — happy indeed if President Shannon 
shall read the French revolution aright, and take timely warn- 
ing of the untold miseries which similar infatuation cannot fail 
to bring upon our own loved land. The author of this address 
then proceeds to vindicate governments upon the principle that 
the restraint of self-will is the true happiness. Now, so far, 
from the government which most subjects my will to that of 
another, as in the case of slavery, being the best, political writers 
of all ages and countries have agieed in the very reverse propo- 
sition. Does not this man, living in a republic, see that he is 
vindicating the despotism of the Turk, as the best rule on 
earth ? In a true republic I may do as I please — follow every 
bent of my own will, except that I must not trench on the riglits 
of others — the largest liberty and happiness consisting in a 
mutual determination that each is to steer clear of his neigh- 



EEVIEW OF PRESIDENT SHANNON. 151 

bor's path ; and if this rule ivas to be fully enforced by law, so 
as to ensure its entire jji'actice, each man would be as free as if 
he stood alone in the world — the point at which government 
ceases to be necessary at all ! 

But if I am in a despotism, I may be so circumscribed by 
the will of my sovereign — at one time sent to the field of luijust 
war, at another subject to unrepelled insult — now forced into 
prison, and then compelled to hard labor unrequited — till life it- 
self shall become insufferable, and all this without any self-will 
on my part — the least moral delinquency. 

With a most leaden stupidity, he fails to see, that if it be 
dangerous for a man's will to be without a master, that it is 
doubly dangerous in the master, to have not only the control 
of his own will, but that of another also. All (his miserable 
nonsense even so far as the slave is concerned, arises from 
his overlooking the fact that the will may be, and alas ! too 
often, is constrained to evil as well as to good. Though the 
master may prevent the slave from being idle, and getting 
drunk, he may deprive her (if a female) of her chastity, and 
him (if a male) of his virihty.* If slaves were but men, and 
masters angels or gods, then would slavery be a blessing ; but 
not till then. " Communities of men therefore have a jus di- 
vinum, a divine right to organize it in such manner as may be 
necessary to secure their permanent safety and happiness." 
What precious stuff is this ? In the " divine right" of tyrants 
there was some sense, if no truth, and men were taught to sub- 
rait to what they could not without infidelity change ; but here 
is neither sense nor truth. If slavery be of God, then man can't 
change it ; if it be of man, then how comes it to be divine 1 
What is the community ? all the individuals, or a part ? If a 
part, which part ? the black or the white ? If you say a majo- 
rity, suppose that a majority are black, as in South Carolina, shall 
the blacks rule ? Long ears and a silent tongue, says nature ; 
violate no more her laws ! The ti^uth every ass, it seems to me, 
might see ; all the individuals have a right to equal action and 



* I know there are many good and virtuous slaveholders : but the misfortune 
is, that bad men have unlimited power— law nor public sentiment cannot con- 
trol them, for all indignation is lulled in the consciousness of a common guilt. 
The crime of castration has been perpetrated with impunity in South Caro- 
lina: the master has the life of the slave in his power— the greater includes 
the less. 



152 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

security, or else none have, either from God or their own wills. 
Then, by his own showing, once more, slavery falls. 

The President thus sums up his whole argument : 

'•' 1st. Happiness is the end and aim of our being." Well, so 
is death the end ; tautology can not save us. 

" 2d. This happiness can be secured only by acting in harmo- 
ny with all the laws of our nature," and not then. 

" 3d. Self-will and insubordination to law is the cause of all 
our unhappiness, individual and social." False in grammar as 
well as in fact. What becomes of the millions of ills that are 
utterly independent of moral action. Even within the scope of 
the unll, virtue does not always lead to happiness ; as in the 
physical world, so in the moral, accident, or fate, is a disturbing 
influence daily displayed. Probably all that can be said upon 
this subject, at last, is that by an ever active and wise regard to 
tlie laws of his being, man may cause good to preponderate over 
evil. The life of Franklin is in point. 

"4th. Freedom, or liberty to act as we please, is a blessing on- 
ly so far as we please to act right. Beyond these limits bond- 
age is a blessing, and freedom a calamity, highly prejudicial to 
our interests, even in the present hfe." If the master be wise as 
well as good, true — if not, not. A sensible slave might belong 
to a fool master ; then the proposition is at least doubtful. He 
might belong to a fool and knave, then is it glaringly false. In 
the first instance the fool master might hurry himself and the 
slave along in the dark, knocking their shins, "against the 
laws of being " at every step ; in the latter case, the master 
might damn the poor devil to utter misery, out of an excess of 
self-7(nll. If this magniloquent dogma is a mere show of wis- 
dom, having no reference to slavery, then say, instead, the moon 
is or is not, as some suppose, a green cheese ; that is shorter and 
more easily assented to. 

" 5th. The destruction of self-will and the cultivation of a law- 
abiding spirit— a spirit to do right in every thing at all hazards, 
is identified with our highest happiness, both in time and eter- 
nity." Amen, say all good men ; the moral law tells you to 
let the oppressed go free, will you do it ? 

" 6th. For the attainment of these benevolent ends, God, at 
various times instituted, by positive enactment, bondage of dif- 
ferent grades— including domestic slavery." I appeal to nature, 
to reason and to every man's conscience, if this be not false ! 



REVIEW OF PRESIDENT SHANNON. 153 

" 7th. Human government is a divine ordinance or appoint- 
ment for the acconiphshment of the same benevolent object ; 
and absohitely indispensable to its accomplishment, at least in 
the present life. When we say that human government is a di- 
vine ordinance, we refer to its authority, and not to its peculiar 
form or mode of organization," &c. The same thing may be 
said of a threshing machine, or a tailor's goose ; human govern- 
ment is just as divine as they, and no more ! When we say that 
a tailor's goose " is a divine ordinance, we refer to its authoiity, 
and not to its peculiar form or mode of organization." Surely 
this must be the brother of the Mexican diplomatist. 

" 8th. As bondage in all its forms is a curse on man for the 
indulgence of self-will and of a lawless spirit, it is obvious that 
it should exist in no government in no greater degree than 
miglit be necessary to secure the general good." " Bondage is 
a curse," ah ! then there's an end of it — then is slavery no bless- 
ing. '■'■No greater degree^'' of course let slavery enter the 
kitchen, but stop at the steps of the mansion ! Yet if this 
'■'■ curse" be a "blessing," I say let it walk into the President's 
house. I am not so impious as to wish a " blessing " to be ex- 
cluded from the parlor of the man of God. 

" 9th. As among the lawless and self-willed, bondage is a 
blessing (a curse?) alike indispensable to the existence of society 
and of individual /happiness, even in this world, it is obvious 
that God wills its existence in every government to such a degree, 
be it more or less, as may be necessary to the attainment of 
these ends," &c. Massachusetts, then, is much more virtuous 
than Kentucky, as she prospers, having no need of bondage. 
God help us to a speedy purification of spirit — a sudden deliver- 
ance from this " blessing," for which we miserable sirmers most 
frankly confess we have no feelings' of gratitude— no hearts of 
thankfulness. 



III. 

The eloquent divine, after denouncing the French revolution, 
as most tyrants do, who affect not to see that this kingdom is 
infinitely better oflf now, in consequence of that change, than 
she ever was in any former period of her history, thus gives 



154 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

Utterance : " Had I a voice of thunder, that could penetrate 
to earth's remotest bounds, I would say to the )nisguided though 
amiable enthusiast everywhere, who is toiling for the universal 
extension of freedom, regardless of the foiegoing principles — 
beware ! " 

" O qui rex hominumque Deo-rumque ! " 

Misserere Domine — keep cool, Mr. Shannon. You may have a 
voice somewhat louder than Amos' baby-wakers — you may get 
Joe Smith's brass plates and make a quasi thunder, which may 
frighten some of the good people of Campbelldom, and cause 
them to fall down on their bellies like beasts, and feed on the 
garbage that slimes the track of South Carolina nullification 
and pro-slavery despotism — but the " amiable enthusiasts " who 
dwell on this side "of earth's remotest bounds," having a spark 
of that Promethean fire in their souls which assimilates them 
to Deity — something of the ken of inunortal vision, distinguish- 
ing good from evil — will perhaps find out, that you are at last 
but the locum tenens, and not the veritable Jupiter Tonans ; 
yes, some daring clown, irreverent of majesty, shall pluck up 
spirit to whisper in the ground, till the very reeds shall cry out, 
" Midas has ass ' ears." 

Ye " amiable enthusiasts," who of old with the sun, moon, 
and stars held companionship, and with a lover's heart com- 
muned with the infinite in time and space ; ye who gazed on 
the " beautiful visible world," with fondest eyes intent, o'er hill 
and dale, by lake and stream, old ocean's waves, in forests wild 
and earth's dark secret caves — and seeing all — 

" A torrent sweeping by, 
And an eagle rushing to the sky, 
And a host to its battle plain," 

did think, of the ideas caught from all created nature, Liberty 
was the most lovely ideal of the soul's imaginings, and inspired, 
so sung of her in moving strains of sweetest harmony, till men 
listened, loved and died in her willing worship: Homer, Virgil, 
Dante, Milton, Byron, go to, with your rusty harps, Shannon 
says, " beware," you sung in vain ! 

Ye "amiable enthusiasts," orators, statesmen, and philoso- 
phers, who ventured to search that deep, unfathomable thing, 
the human heart — the hopes, the fears, the loves, the passions, 



REVIEW OP PRESIDENT SHANNON. 155 

the hatreds, conscience, instinct, reason — this " harp of a thou- 
sand strings," and marked out at last the all-ennobling senti- 
ment Liberty^ as the thing divine, in itself at once the most 
glorious motive, and the highest end of mortal deeds : Plato, 
Socrates, Demosthenes, Cato, Cicero, Chatham, Franklin, Jef- 
ferson, Henry — babblers " beware," when had you " regard," to 
Shannon's " principles " of philosophy ? 

Oh Epaminondas, and Miltiades, and Cincinnatus, and Bruce, 
and Tell, and Washington—" amiable enthusiasts," your laurels 
shall wither, and the "night-shade of death-distilling fruit" 
shall henceforth encompass your brows for ever ! Your heaven- 
born aspirations were all in vain — Shannon's " philosophy of 
slavery " was unknown to you ! Marathon, and Leuctra, and 
Bannockburn, and Waterloo, and Bunker Hill, and Yorktown, 
in vain was the best blood of long ages shed on your plains — • 
" freedom " is an unattainable thing ! No more shall your sacred 
soil drink of the tears of the "amiable enthusiasts" who in 
times past have gone up to thy altars, to rekindle the fires of 
Liberty in heroic hearts — the President of Bacon College has 
spoken in a " voice of thunder, penetrating to earth's remotest 
bounds ; " avenged be the blood of tyrants — henceforth you 
shall grow only cabbages, and the yearning bowels of the youths 
of America shall be filled with grass ! 

You are no enthusiast, Mr. President — not given to the 
ideal — oh, no, too much stern stuff for that — believe in the 
universal extension of freedom ? not you : you only believe 
in the universal extension of the Christian religion, and the 
coming of the glorious millennium ! When the lion and lamb 
shall lie down together ; when the wild beasts of the field shall 
be disarmed of their ferocity ; shall the master at last continue 
to appeal to the fears of his slave ? or shall every bond be broken 
and the oppressed go free ? Which, now, Mr. President, will 
you give up, your " philosophy," or your religion ? 

" Hypocrisy, in mercy spare it, 
That holy robe, O diu-na tear it, '-,,,. 

Spare it for their sakes who wear it 
The lads in black ! 

" Think, wicked sinner wha ye're skaitbing, 
It's just the blue-gown badge an' claithing 
O' saunts ; take that, ye lea'e them naething 

To ken tliem by, 
Frae ony unregenerate heathen 
Like you or I." 



156 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

I put it to you, then, not as a Christian, but as a philosopher, 
when before in the histoiy of the world did mankind enjoy more 
liberty and happiness than now ? Have you not heard how 
many nations have not only become free themselves, but how 
they have been just enough to remember that all men were 
made of one flesh — the children of the same father ? If since 
the American Revolution such progress has been made towards 
" universal freedom," how do you know that the final goal may 
not be at last reached ? that it may not be at least spread over 
this nominal republic ? 

If it be true, as you quote from Dr. Wayland, that govern- 
ment must either be formed upon moi'als, or upon /ear — are you 
not ashamed, being a religionist, to give up the Bible for the 
sword ? Is there not in all this something worse than most lame 
and impotent reasoning ? is it not contemptible cant and ram- 
pant hypocrisy? 

The remarks upon mob-law would be well enough in a trea- 
tise upon liberty, but are utterly out of place in a studied defence 
of slavery. When he puts up the bayonet in the place of moral 
appeal — ^when he arms me with a pistol over the every will of 
the slave — is it not absurd to say, that one man may do in good 
conscience what, when done by ten or more, becomes a crime of 
the darkest dye ? I make the bold assertion, that slavery is 
lynch-law — mob-law — the law of force, unmeasured by any 
check but the unbridled will of an irresponsible master : the day 
^^ mob-iaiD ^' ceases, slavery dies! What alliance, then, can 
slavery have with Christianity ? The conclusion of this address 
touches my sensibilities as the most absurd mockery, and the 
foulest blasphemy against God and virtue ; it will be read by 
the enlightened portion of mankind with the same horror with 
which Judge O'Neal's sentence of death upon Brown filled all 
Christendom. 

I repeat, I have not dealt personally with President Shannon 
further than his principles demanded unqualified denunciation. 
When the interests of seventeen millions of free laborers are 
trodden under foot, by the same inexorable laws which consign 
three millions of" native American" blacks to hopeless slavery ; 
when Republicanism is stabbed in its vitals, and Liberty, under 
any form of government, sought to be extinguished ; when the 
inner temple of virtue is desecrated to base uses, and the sanc- 
tity of the living God invoked in a most unholy cause ; when 
all that is just, and great, and lovely, and sacred — all that makes 



LETTER TO J. J. SPEED. 157 

life desirable, or death supportable, is attempted to be struck 
down at one insidious blow ; in the desperate energy of self- 
defence, I shall not stop to ask, whether a frothy, lying dema- 
gogue, or a canting, sniveling priest shall be the foe. 

He may be unconscious of his guilt, but I freely declare my 
most solemn conviction that there is no crime known among 
men greater than the one committed by this man. A single 
murder may extingviish the hopes and fears, the joys and 
sorrows of one poor mortal — the horridly repulsive features of a 
special individual crime will check the contagion of the example 
— but this sanctimonious advocacy of lynch-law, slavery, and 
wholesale assassination, is infinitely more disastrous in its 
ultimate results. 

Vv'^hen I see the innocent eyes of these young and true hearts 
raised to their respected teacher, asking some noble, virtuous 
and sin-defying principle — some glorious and vital sheet-anchor 
of faith, hope, and safety in a world of temptation and sorrow — 
when I see slavery instilled into the deep recesses of the soul, 
drying up the sweet sympathies of the heart, stilling the noblest 
aspirations of the spirit, substituting crime for virtue, leading 
down to death and despair — I find no language to give vent to 
the emotions of pain and indignation which crowd upon me ! 

Had this man lived in the days of Socrates, the Athenians 
might have been saved their greatest reproach : as a corruptor 
of youth, he would have been justly compelled to drink the 
hemlock. Had he dwelt in Judea of old, our Lord might have 
been betrayed, and the twelve pieces of silver have been saved. 

I shall not insult the slave trader of Louisiana, or the man- 
pirate of the seas by a comparison with the Christian defender 
of slavery — for here is one who, without gold, prostitutes his 
soul to the greatest of crimes, is proud of his abandonment, and 
glories in his shame ! 



LETTER. - ^ ^ ' 

CoL. J. J. Speed, of Ithaca. 

Lexington, Ky., July 10, 1844. 
Dear Sir — I have received your letter of the 2d instant, 
inviting me to your state this summer. I am sensible of the 
high compliment which you pay me ; and would gladly comply 



158 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

witli your Avishes, if public and private duties did not call me 
elsewhere. In the meantime I am not idle, and my correspon- 
dence with both whigs and liberty men is extensive. I confess 
that my interest in the cause of the whigs is founded on the 
supposition that they will act up in good faith to their profession. 
If whiggery means anything it means opposition to tyranny — 
all tyranny. If it is dear to me at all, it is because it promotes 
the great principles of equality and individual prosperity which 
can only result from real republicanism. I regard no aristo- 
cracy in Europe so coercive and anti-republican as Southern 
slaveholding. The North is equally implicated in this tyranny 
over master as well as slaves. The whigs must come up to 
this high ground or fall, and their fall will not be regietted by 
coming generations. If you cannot have my services, you can 
have those of a greater. Seward is a name that New York 
may well be proud of; call him into the field. Such a man 
leading, the whigs must triumph. To succeed when such a 
man is not a fit leader brings no success at which a lover of 
the principles of '76 can rejoice. Let the whigs of the North 
put the battle on its true basis and fight it bravely — on one 
side, Polk, Slavery, and Texas — on the other. Clay, Union, 
and Liiherty. If we cannot beat on such issues then let us fall : 
and iu our fall we will be remembered by the good for ever. 
Can it be possible that, while Mr. Clay shall lose some three or 
four slave states, which were sure to him before, by opposing 
Texas, that there is not sufficient spirit of freedom, honor, and 
good faith in the North to carry those large states where his 
success was before doubtful ? Mr. Clay, and his friends, have 
taken high and holy ground. We must raise the war-cry, soul- 
stirring as the great questions at issue are expansive, and lasting 
in their consequences for good or evil. With Polk's election 
Texas comes in ; with Texas the North and South are inevita- 
bly split, and away goes the fruits to us here, at least, of the 
American Revolution. 

It is in vain to put off the evil day ; it is at hand now. 
Slavery or liberty is to be determined in some sort this coming 
election — ^not the liberty of the black only, but of the white also. 
I do not mean to say that Mr. Clay is an emancipationist ; but 
I believe his feelings are with the cause. I know that those 
most immediately within his influence approximate to myself 
in sentiment upon the subject of slavery. The great mass of 



LETTER TO J. J. SPEED. 159 

whigs are, or ought to be, anti-slavery. If so, then you have no 
need of me ; but if principles give strength, then strengthen 
yourselves, for I (^aim nothing above the humblest of my whig 
friends in ability. If ardent and sincere zeal in the cause of my 
country's highest and best interests, have given me any conside- 
ration, go you and do likewise, and your success will be equal. 

The great question of the age in all countries is slavery or 
liberty. The American Declaration of Rights has leavened the 
world^the waves first started in the old hall in Philadelphia in 
'76 have encompassed the earth, and are now returning with 
accumulated power to the centre where they started. Slavery 
must fall. Whether we will give it up or go down with it 
remains with ourselves. " The fault is not in our stars, but in 
ourselves that we are underlings.-' It begins to be an effort in 
Europe to treat Americans with civility. Let us take care to 
retire from Christendom, or vindicate our title to respect. Ten 
years I have labored silently and cautiously in this cause — • 
forsaken by the whigs, I have stood by them in good and in 
evil report. I cling to them yet. I implore them to come up 
to the standard made by Washington and his noble compeers. 
Save us fiom disgrace and ruin — elevate us among nations to 
that post of honor which we once held, and from which slavery 
and repudiation — twin-brothers — have dragged us down. Let 
God and liberty be once more our battle-cry — and at last free- 
dom, union, and equality may be ours for ever. 

Yours, in the cause of the union and hberty, 

Cassius M. Clay. 



SPEECH 

At the Tremont Temi^leon the evening of the nineteenth instant, after the ad- 
journment of the great convention on Boston Common. Sept. 1844. 

It would be ungrateful in me to affect to be insensible to the 
respect and enthusiasm with which I have been received here, 
as elsewhere, in the whole North, yet my gratification is dimin- 
ished by the reflection that I cannot point to any achievement 
of my own — any great public service which deserves so much 
distinction as you are pleased to bestow upon me. Still, if fixed- 
ness of purpose, an ardent love of country, and a fearless advo- 
cacy oi truth are worthy of consideration, I trust I may prove 
not altogether undeserving your generous confidence. I stand 
here under very peculiar circumstances. Having been ever true 
to the whig cause, from my earliest manhood down to the pre- 
sent hour, I find myself denounced by leading whigs as ultra 
in my opinions. I owe the whigs nothing — once having pos- 
sessed their confidence and support, because I would not sub- 
mit my conscience and my reason to their will I — have been by 
them, or at least by a portion of them, joined by the democratic 
party, proscribed for ever. It is unnecessary to say that from 
the democratic party, I meet with no favor. I myself, am then, 
only responsible for myself. I know too well that I am de- 
nounced at the South as an enemy of my country ; I know also 
who they are, that pursue me with inexorable malice, which 
neither time, nor distance, nor any thing short of utter ruin of 
ray name and person, can ever satiate. To the pro-slavery 
party of the South I owe nothing ; no — not my life. Once 
more now, as heretofore, I scorn their wrath and defy their 
power. I appeal from the thirty-one thousand fom- hundred 
and ninety-five slave-holders to the five hundred thousand /ree 
white, laborers of my own loved state. Yes, to Kentucky, 
place of my nativity, home of my boyhood, the early and fond 
associations of childhood, and more mature age, I owe my first 
and lasting allegiance — there I shall ever live and there I shall 
repose in death. To my country, to posterity, to God, I look for 
slow coming justice and ultimate judgment. 



SPEECH AT BOSTON. IQl 

Shall I repeat that the present crisis is the most eventful in 
the annals of our history. It is the same great struggle, which 
from time immemorial down to the present hour, has never 
ceased between liberty and slavery. In the language of Mr. 
Choate, the question is not how we shall be governed only, but 
who shall govern ? It is the same issue which the colonies of 
America, in seventeen hundred and seventy-six, made with the 
tyrannical parliament of Britain, except that now we are called 
upon not only to vindicate the right that taxation and represen- 
tation shoidd be equal and inseparable, but to stand by, or for 
ever lose, many of those great safeguards of liberty which we 
enjoyed under the British rule. Mr. Webster has asked to-day 
'•where, out of America, save in England, exist trial by jury, a 
free press, public assemblies, the right of free discussion and the 
habeas corpus act ?" I ask you, where but in England do they 
exist? do they exist here? No, you know too well that they do 
not. These great bulwarks of human liberty founded on the 
blood and unspeakable woe of the great and good, who have 
for long ages fallen a sacrifice to the vindication of the eternal 
principles of right and truth, are now trampled under foot by 
tbe despotic pro-slavery party of this republic. 

Yes, it is to slavery and to the tem})orizing policy of our fa- 
tb.ers, owing thai the war of '76 was incomplete, and that we 
are now called upon in 1844 once more to fight the battle of 
liberty. I will not reproach our illustrious sires, or detract from 
their glorious fame: they did more, by the American revolution 
and the constitution of the United States, to establish the cause 
of human freedom, than any other men whose deeds illustrate 
the annals of the world. Still, sad experience has too well proved 
to us, that they left much undone, and the permission of slavery 
in the United States government has well nigh left us nothing 
of our original franchises. Let us look the evil boldly in the 
face : and if it be not already too late, retrace our steps, and be 
yet saved from ruin. It cannot be denied that the whole people 
of the Union were particrpes cnminif} in the establishment of 
slavery ; when they allowed the importation of slaves up to 
1808 ; when the North agreed to return slaves to the South ; 
and allowed three votes for every five slaves in the federal repre- 
sentation. Yes, if they did not use the word slai'e they meant 
it — they meant what they said — if they did not say all they 
meant. On the other hand I deny, now and for ever, that 
11 



162 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

there was any sacred and inviolable compromise between slave- 
ry and liberty. Adams, and Sherman, and Morris, and others 
of the North ; and Madison, and Jefferson, and the immortal 
Washington, and others of the South — yes all, with few excep- 
tions, of the illustrious founders of the Constitution, were 
opposed to slavery. And all — all, every one that voted for the 
Constitution, agreed that all alliance with slaver}^, so far as 
expressed in the three clauses named, the only ones in the 
Constitution on that subject, should cea.^e whenever three-fourths 
of the states should will its fall. The only compromise in the 
Constitution is that every state, small as well as large, shall for 
ever have tico senators; all other clauses of the Constitution 
but this may be changed in accordance with the express per- 
mission of the instrument itself. And since the object of the 
Union, in its preamble, was to establish justice and perpetuate 
liberty, then, it is not only the right but the inexorable duty of 
this great republic to purge the Constitution of these clauses, 
which blot its fair escutcheon', and make its great fabric indeed 
the temple of the free. The national government has no 
power over slavery in the slave states, because none was given 
it by these then independent sovereignties. Let each state act 
on its own responsibility — looking to its own interests, to con- 
science, and to God. / stand hy the Constitution — yes^ with 
my life I ivill defend it. But as the general government has 
no power to abolish slavery, so it has no power to make slavery : 
and the admission of slave states into this Union I declare to 
be unconstitutional : and the permission of slavery is its 
establishment. Within the district of Columbia and in the 
territories of the Union, slavery does not constitutionally exist. 
For the fifth article of the amendments says expressly that " no 
person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due 
process of law" — which means without some crhne committed, 
and ascertained, and punished by law. Then if Congress 
cannot make a slave, she cannot allow a new state to do it — 
she cannot transfer to others more power than she has herself 
— the agent cannot do more than the principal — then she 
cannot permit slavery in states or territories, or any other place 
where she has sovereign and uncontrolled power. Nor can the 
miserable pretence be set up, that blacks are not "joer^ow^," for 
slaves are called "persons" in every clause where they are al- 
luded to in the constitution. And if A, B, and C, calling them- 



SPEECH AT BOSTON 163 

selves states, or Congress itself, can make, or allow to be mode, 
a black man a slave, then I and the best man in Massachusetts 
may be reduced to slavery, and there is no power in the Consti- 
tution to restore us to liberty. The states of Louisiana, and 
Missouri, and Arkansas, which have been unconstitutionally 
admitted slave states, have now been by us, the Union, admit- 
ted to be SOVEREIGN, and entitled to all the privileges of the 
other states. I would not, if I could^ now interfere with slave- 
ry there. Experience teaches us that stability in the affairs of 
men is much ; and it is often better to bear some ills than lose 
all good by an attempt too late to remedy But I say, that in 
the District of Columbia and in the Floridas, as we have, con- 
trary to the Constitution, allowed slavery, we should now pay 
the masters, and let the slaves go free. Yes, I would tax my- 
self doubly to liquidate the penalty of the bond — give them two 
prices, if necessary, that in the capital of this great republic, and 
throughout its vast jurisdiction, the American eagle should 
spread its sheltering Avings for ever over all, of whatever tongue, 
clime, or color. Here, then, on this broad ground, I take my 
stand, and I defy the combined talent of all the lawyers and 
statesmen of tlie repubhc to move me. 

Thus far, the pro-slavery power, by the concentrated interest 
of having $1,200,000,000 of so called property represented, has 
triumphed over the power of liberty and free labor. Ouj- offi- 
ces of honor and profit have been monopolized almost by slave- 
holders ; our foreign policy has been subsidary to the fostering 
of slave labor, at the expense of free labor. The system of in- 
ternal improvements, as carried on by the general government, 
the land bill, a national currency, and above all, the tariff, have 
all been prostrated at the feet of the slave power. And now, 
v.'hen the people of the North seem to be opening their eyes to 
the real sacrifices which they have made in the desecrated name 
of democracy, to the rule of slavery, by the i-^inous results of 
the reduction of the tariff from 1832 to '42/John C. Calhoun 
and his southern clique, seek once more an accession of slave 
territory to strengthen their power and assist them in over-rul- 
ijig the tariff of protection, and to reduce us once more to free 
trade and perpetual slavery. They are determined to rule or 
ruin ; to wield the whole power of the Union, or else dissolve 
I he Union, and establish a slave despotism in the South. Hence 
the democratic party in 1844, although they went up to Balti- 



164 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

more instructed to vote for Mr. Yan Buren, threw him overboard. 
So they rejected Cass, and Buchanan, and Stewart, and took 
the unheard-of name of James K. Polk, of Tennessee, Mr. Cal- 
hovm's, and Andrew Jackson's most supple tool, imposed upon 
them by the same nidlification power whicli had prostrated all 
the interests of free labor at the feet of the free trade and perpe- 
tual slavery party of the South. And Mr. Polk was suited to 
their purposes, not only because he was for Texas and free 
trade, but because he was, from his position in a slave state, ne- 
cessarily identified with the great scheme of ultimate disunion. 
Do I state untruth? What say the convention? They are 
for immediate annexation ! What says Mr. Calhoun ? He is 
for Texas, to prevent the ultimate overthrow of slavery. What 
says R. M. Johnson ? We want Texas to form new slave 
states, to balance the coming in of the free states of Wisconsin 
and Iowa. What say Messrs. Holmes and Rhett ? They will 
"Kave T'exas with the Union, or, if necessary, without the Union. 
What says the ex-nullification governor, James Hamilton ? He 
will resort to arms for Texas and dissolution ! And last, not 
least, what says T. H. Benton, the leader of the democratic par- 
ty for the last quarter of a century, up to May, 1844 — a man of 
more sense than all the nullification party consolidated into one ? 
He tells us in his Booneville speech, that " dissolution of the 
Union'''' is the end proposed by these Texas annexationists. 
Jackson tells us, Texas is the question; the Richmond En- 
quirer, the leader of the southern democratic wing, says that 
" free trade and Texas are the questions." If then these be the 
issues, and I am compelled to choose between Polk and free 
trade, and Texas, on the one hand, and Henry Clay, home la- 
bor, and the Union, on the other, then, by all that is sacred 
ranong men, I go for Clay and the whig parly, and against Polk 
and the democratic party. Free trade with other nations is im- 
possible — they do not, and will not allow it — and they ought 
not if they would. I lay down the broad ground, that has been 
practised on for centuries by intelligent nations, repeated once 
more by Thomas Jefferson, and engrafted into our system, by 
the first law ever made by our government, the end of which 
was to perfect its execution, that " the farmer and mechanic 
should be set down alongside of each other." 
— If I raise a bushel of wheat, and carry it to England, and 
there exchange it for a hat, I have to pay the entire cost of 



SFEECH AT BOSTON. I55 

transportation, or, if it is divided between me and the hatter 
equally, I lose half the cost of the carriage. If I sell my bushel 
of wheat to the hatter living alongside of me, I lose nothing in 
carriage, iteither I nor the hatter. Again, if I carry my bushel 
of wheat to England, or send it, and sell it, I get one hundred 
and ten cents a bushel, but it costs me sixty cents to get it there, / 
leaving me but fifty cents at last a bushel for my wheat ; but 
if I can by volition, or by legislation, move the hatter from 
England, and place him by me, he gives me one hundred and 
ten cents for my wheat, and I more than double the product o^-^"^ 
my farm. I say that the whole navy of the world, not engaged 
in fishing, and similar pursuits, but in carrying on exchanges 
between countries, which might each for itself make the same 
things within themselves, is a dead loss to the xcorld. The 
ships must be built and manned, and the men fed at the 
common expense of the grain grower, and the manufacturer, 
and they produce nothing in return. England was wise enough 
long ago to find out this thing; and by her tariflfof protection, 
wliereby the farmer found a market at home, and the manu- 
facturer a market in the agriculturist, she has elevated herself 
to the first position among nations. Nor can her starving 
millions be urged as an argument against her protective policy. 
If human life be a blessing, and it be the will of Deity that the 
earth should support the greatest amount of animal nature 
possible, in comfort and luxury, then has England done as 
unich or more than any other European nation, in the fulfil- 
ment of her true destiny. Suppose that the lov/er strata of 
society embraces five millions of people, subject to famine, 
disease, and death ; then you have the remaming twenty 
millions out of the twenty-five millions comfortable, and enjoy- 
ing, some of them, many luxuries ; reduce the high living of 
the court, clergy, and aristocracy, and you bring comfort to 
many millions more. Poverty, disease, and the sword, are. by 
the stern laws of nature, the checks upon population ; destroy 
England's tariff and machinery, and reduce her population ten 
millions, still there would stand these same inexorable laws, 
destroying human life, and limiting population. All animal and 
vegetable nature are prolific in seed, but perish for want of suste- 
nance ; a thousand fish are spawned, where ten live to maturity ; 
so with man, he is limited by the pressure of misery on the 
imder strata. Take the thin, sparse tribes of American savages, 



]^56 THE WRITIiNGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

there is no class enjoying comfort and security ; but the chief 
and commoner, the squaw and papoose, are all subject to fear, 
the sword, cold, hunger, and death. Then let not the tariff 
system be sacrificed to the dictation of the slave power — but let 
here in our own republic many centuries intervene, before we 
shall be subject to the stern laws which press upon the laboring 
poor of Europe. And cursed be the statesman for ever, who 
would degrade the laborers of this happy country to the level 
of foreign labor, and precipitate them into premature and unne- 
cessary decay, and untimely and utter ruin. 

In order to accomplish the overthrow of the free labor of the 
country, north and south, then Texas must be taken into the 
confederacy. It was for this, that the naked project is now pre- 
sented to this people ; whether they wih now, in the nineteenth 
century, in the face of Christendom, without any outward 
pressure — such as in times past was urged, that England 
forced slaves upon us, without the salvo to an awakening con- 
science, so often potently applied — " what are we to do with the 
slaves when free ?" in direct violation of the Constitution, 
through breach of treaty, and by war — cruel, unprovoked, un- 
hallowed war — vote to extend slavery over three hundred thou- 
sand square miles of territory, now declared by Mexico to be free 
and equal in all its population, in order to perpetuate the bonds 
of ihree million slaves and seventeen million whites ! For 
one, if I stand alone, I am against it now ; I am against it for 
ever ! Let us examine, for a moment, some of the miserable 
pretences for this acquisition, which are thrown out to deceive 
the honest portion of the democracy, and delude them to their 
own ruin. For, what kind of democracy is that which, 
contrary to the principles upon which were based the Ame- 
rican revolution, allows the most infamous man, who by 
the slave trade, or piracy, acquires possession of one hundred 
slaves^his fellow men — in Texas, to stand, by admission into 
the Union, against you, sir, (Abbot Lawrence) and any other 
sixty of the wealthiest and most intelligent freemen, whether 
whig, democrat, or abolitionist, in the North ? We want Texas, 
they tell us, to prevent smuggling into the United States ! That 
is, the men who have sworn to dissolve the Union, or break 
down the domestic industry of the country, want Texas for 
fear England will do the same thing, which they are rushing 
to war, even, to accomplish ! Into such absurdities do men fall 



SPEECH AT BOSTON. 167 

when they leave the straight road of justice and truth ! Here 
hes England along our whole northern coast. We are accessi- 
ble through the whole of the eastern and southern l)order, and 
yet we are to be told that Great Britain will sail around the 
dangerous seas about Florida, and into the shallow lagoons of 
all southern Texas, and pass through the swamps of the Mis- 
sissippi lying between these and the Sabine, to smuggle goods 
into America ! The same reasons which forbid its being used 
as a place of smuggling, apply with greater force against the 
idea of Andrew Jackson, that Texas would, in the hands of 
England, become a point of attack. If it were not from the 
source whence this argument came, it would deserve to be pass- 
ed in contemptuous silence. What? when we are unable to 
guard the line from the mouth of the Sabine to the southern 
border of Arkansas, a few hundred miles, extend the line from 
the mouth of the Rio Grande, eighteen hundred miles including 
Santa Fe, to its source — embracing one hundred thousand 
square miles more than the kingdom of France — and then we 
can defend it? But if names are thus to weigh down common 
sense, I put Napoleon against Jackson, and he tells us that a 
desert is the best barrier against foreign incursions. And should 
England be fool enough to land in the shallow bays of Texas, 
unfit for the first class of war steamers, and hazard her army 
tbrough the tinprodnctive swamps between the Sabine and the 
Great River, we Avould have time enough to rally a half rail- 
lion of freemen, from the lakes to the Gulf, to give her ball and 
steel as soon as she showed herself from the canebrakes of 
the Mississippi. The idea that England seeks to surround us 
is equally absurd. If she did, she would only weaken her 
force, and enable us more easily to break through her serried 
ranks, wherever drawn up in battle array. But England seeks 
not to possess Texas ; she has again and again, in the most 
formal maimer, disclaimed any improper interference, of any 
character whatever; and if she should attempt it, then let us, 
by arms, if necessary, stand for Texan independence. 

I would always treat an opponent with respect, but I must 
confess that I lose my patience when I see such men as Mr. 
Bancroft inging the annexation of Texas, under the damnable 
pretence that it would ultimately lead off slavery from our soil. 
Manufacturers, do you lower the price of your goods by acquir- 
ing additional markets ? Farmers, do you diminish the price 



168 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

of your produce by having- two manufacturing towns to sell to, 
instead of one ? Tlicn tell me no more that you will destroy 
slavery in the states by finding in Texas new markets for 
slaves, and thus enhancing the profits of slave breeding in all 
the grain-growing slave states in the Union. What presump- 
tion is it, for men here to set up such opinions against the 
combined experience of all who live in the slave states, both, 
those who are in favor of emancipation, and those who advo- 
cate eternal slavery, agreeing in this only, that the admission 
of Texas will tend to make slavery secure in the United States 
for centuries to come ! Nor do we want Texas for the purposes 
of emigration and expansion of our population. Every prin- 
ciple of political economy teaches us, that up to the time when 
the earth ceases to afford sustenance for its inhabitants, it is 
desirable not to diminish population, but to increase it : because 
all the burthens of civil government, moral and intellectual 
improvement, are lessened to each individual by the accumu- 
lation of numbers, to say nothing of the perfection of all the 
arts which accrue from the division of labor and the laws of 
intelligent observation and heightened competition. We are 
capable, on our present soil, of sustaining more than two 
hundred millions of men. Far distant, then, is the day, when 
it will be the interest of our people to leave us. No, we do not 
want Texas to prevent smuggling — we do not want it to prevent 
England from getting it as a point of attack — we do not want 
it for purposes of emigrating — we do not want it to destroy 
slavery. Oh, no ! I ask every democrat here to-night, to tell 
if there be under heaven, any reason why this project then is 
urged upon us, in all this hot haste, but for the avowed, the 
single, the damnable purpose of extending slavery over the 
unborn millions of Texas, and perpetuating the slave rule 
over us and our posterity ! Once more, I repeal, I am against 
it, now and for ever. The Romans made their prisoners of 
war pass under a yoke, to remind them of their servitude : 
here is a yoke labelled war and perpetual slaveiy ; shall the 
future historian write it, that the descendants of the patriots of 
'76 went forward to the polls in 1844, and voluntarily submitted 
their necks to bondage, gladly prostrating themselves before the 
heel of the tyrant ? 

But if you take Texas you must pay her debts, twenty-five 
million dollars, says Mr. Benton, who also tells what we all 



SPEECH AT BOSTON. 169 

believe to be true, that not a single foot of unappropriated land 
remains in Texas proper to come into our possession and liqui- 
date ihe debt we pay for her. How dare the men who will not 
give us our own land money, to pay our debts and relieve our 
own states from repudiation and dishonor, to thrust their 
fingers into the pockets of the freemen of America, to pay twenty- 
five millions of money for a foreign nation, incurred in propa- 
gating slavery among men ? We trample upon the most solemn 
treaty between Mexico and the United States, and rush over the 
Constitution, to war in this fiendish propagandism ; and in such 
a war, according to the laws of nations, it is not only the right, 
but the bounden duty of all Christendom, to come in to the help 
of Mexico, and reduce us to a sense of common justice. And 
in such a war, when the banner of 1776, " right against might," 
once borne by us, is now borne by them — when I shall be called 
upon to rally to the standard of my country, inscribed with 
'= eternal slavery" — I am bold in the avowal, that, though I profess 
to be as brave as most men, I have no heart for such a contest, 
I am a coward in such a cause ! On our own soil, in defence 
of our own rights, I defy the world in arms ; but in such a 
cause as this, if the Bible be true, we cannot succeed ; if history 
be not a fable, we cannot hold permanent conquest ; "they who 
live by the sword shall perish by the sword ; " and at all times, 
dominion based upon unjust conquest, has fallen to sudden ruin 
and ultimate retributive desolation ! This republic nmst stand 
upon justice, a high moral sentiment, or else it cannot stand at 
all; there must be either a regard for right, or a resort to the 
sword ; either a pure ballot-box, or the pestilential cartridge- 
box ! The day that the nation deliberately violates right, the 
Constitution of our country crumbles into dust, and is gone for 
ever, and upon its ruins rises force and utter despotism. And 
now we are called upon, in the very outset, to perpetrate this 
outrage against the laws of nations and nature, by trampling 
the Constitution under foot in two several instances ; once, as I 
have shown before, by violating the 5th article of the amend- 
ments, by admitting Texas as a slave state ; and again, by 
admitting her at all. The Constitution is an instrument of 
delegated powers ; all powers not given are reserved to the states, 
or to the people. Where, I ask every democrat here, is the 
clause, giving the federal government authority to add a foreign 
natiSn to us, or us to a foreign nation ? Nowhere ! You can- 



170 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

not show it ; it does not exist. 1 admit, with Chancellor Kent 
that Louisiana was constitutionally admitted as territory, saving 
the allowance of slavery ; although every Jeffersonian democrat 
would be forbid the use of the precedent; for Mi. Jefferson 
aoreed there was no power in the Constitution to accomplish it. 
But there lay Spain at the mouth of the Mississippi, threatening 
by arms to resist our entrance into the Gulf of Mexico, the great 
highway of nations, to which we had a right to • pass, by the 
laws of God and man. Kentucky could not treat with her ; she 
was forbid to do so by the federal Constitution ; war was likely 
to ensue: there was necessarily some soverign power to coma 
forward, and anticipate a ruinous war by a timely treaty ; it 
necessarily accrued, then, to the Senate of the United States 
to acquire, or cede territory, in order to determine this eternal 
cause of enmity and war. I say then that Louisiana was 
rightly acquired of France ; and the same thing was rightly 
done at the treaty of Washington, when land was acquired and 
lost in Maine. But far different is the case with Texas ; we 
have no cause of quarrel, no point of contact ; there is no 
necessity for the interference of the Senate, and its power 'only 
belongs to it. 

""^When you vote for Polk, then, you vote for Texas ; for Mr. 
Webster has very well to-day remarked, that it is " Polk and 
Texas, or neither Polk nor Texas." If, then, you elect Polk, 
you vote a tax of twenty-five millions of dollars — you vote a 
war — you vote the violation of treaties — you vote a double viola- 
tion of the Constitution, by annexing foreign states, and also 
slave states, to the Union. And if the president and fifty-two 
senators may to-night annex Texas to us, they may to-morrow 
unite us once more to the British crown, or to the Russian 
despotism. If they may enslave the blacks to-day, they may 
enslave me and you the day after ; and there is no power under 
heaven which can give us liberty, if this Constitution does not. 
Men of Boston, what say you ? Will you give up the Consti- 
tution, or will you stand by it for ever ? What shall we do, 
then, to avoid these accumulated evils that threaten us on all 
sides? Who can save us from this gulf of ruin? Can Mr. 
Garrison do it? He will not if he has the power ! Can Mr. 
Birney do it? He cannot, if he would. Mr. Polk will be sure 
not to save us, but to sacrifice us. What other man, then, in 
all this wide land, except Mr. Clay, can, from his talendl, his 



SPEECH AT BOSTON. 171 

patriotism, and his fortunate position, stay the wild waves of 
anarchy, violence, and dishonor 7/^ No other — none. Then 
must I vote for Mr. Clay. He has told us in three several 
letters that he is against Texas. So long as it costs more than 
a fair rate, he is against it. It was thought, by the Jackson 
cabinet, to be worth four millions of money only. Now, when 
there is not a foot of land to be sold to refund the money, we 
have no reason to believe that Mr. Clay would be willing to 
give twenty-five millions of dollars. So long as it costs us 
dishonor, by breach of treaty, Mr. Clay is against it. So long, 
then, as Mexico shall choose the treaty to remain, so long is Mr. 
Clay against annexation. So long as it costs us a war, Mr. 
Clay is opposed to Texas. War now exists : and Santa Anna, 
her president, tells General Hamilton that as long as a drop of 
Mexican blood flows in the veins of her patriots, they will resist 
the desecration of their soil, and the dismemberment of the 
Empire. And although bribes have been offered, and ministers 
have been sent to negotiate, and every thing tried, it is all in 
vain to move the ?»Iexicans to acknowledge the independence of 
Texas. And they know full well that the loss of Texas is the 
downfall of Mexico. Already has Mr. C. J. IngersoU said this 
whole continent is, or should be, ours ; and so soon as Texas 
falls, then falls California, then Mexico proper, and so on, till 
our own government, as well as theirs, shall be for ever wrecked. 
So long, then, as Mexicans shall love their homes, the graves 
of their sires, the illustrious dead, who achieved her indepen- 
dence, so long will she resist Texan independence, and so long 
is Mr. Clay bound to oppose annexation. So long as Texas 
cannot come in by the common consent of the Union, so long 
is ^Ir. Clay pledged against it. He will not look to the Demo- 
cratic, the Whig, or Libert}^ party in the states, but to the states 
themselves. He regards them as forming in the Union indivi- 
duals, parties to a common compact. No new partner can 
come in, without vitiating the whole agreement ; and if this 
view be his, as we are warranted in saying, then, so long as a 
single state opposes it, Texas cannot be ours. Five states have 
almost unanimously, in their state capacity, protested against 
the imholy project. So long, then, as they — as one of the 
smallest states is against it — she cannot, by Mr. Clay's consent, 
come in. So long, then, as you are true to the great principles 
of 1776 — so long as you remain worthy descendants of the 



172 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

pilgrim sires — so long as the vestal flame of liberty shall burn 
in your bosoms, eternal and inextinguishable — so long is Mr. 
Clay, three several times in the most solemn manner, before 
the nation and all mankind, irrevocably bound to oppose the 
annexation of Texas to these United States. Then, my coun- 
trymen ! be persuaded to trample under foot prejudice and 
party rule, and quietly and conscientiously review the whole 
ground ; then look to your country and to God, and do your 
duty now in November 1844, before it is for ever too late ! 

Be not deluded by the enemies of all liberty, who, under the 
honeyed name of democracy^ would reduce you to perpetual 
servitude. Do not suppose that you are doing anything for the 
cause of human freedom by opposing Mr. Clay. Of all men 
now present, I have the greatest cause to take care that I am 
not deceived in this matter. I can go — I say it before God and 
man — with a good conscience for him, because I believe it will 
save my country from ruin if we shall secure his election. The 
blood of all those, who in all ages have gone up to the scaffold 
and the cannon's mouth, in defence of the true and the right, 
calls on us to-night. Remember the mighty agony, the voice- 
less woe, of the generous and brave hearts who have perished 
in the cause of human liberty. Oh, be faithful to this last hope 
of freedom among men : let our battle cry be liberty and union 
— God and the right. If we triumph, mankind will rejoice in 
our success ; if we fall, then all that is worthy to stand, the 
noblest aspirations of the soul, the desire of glory and immortal- 
ity, shall fall with vis. 



ADDRESS 



TO THE 



PEOPLE OF KENTUCKY 



Whilst I was battling in the North, in a triangular fight, 
with Whigs, Abolitionists, and Democrats, for the postulate 
that " what the law makes property, is property," and that all 
good citizens should abide by the law, till they can, in a legal 
and constitutional manner, conform it to their conscientious 
standard of morality ; the Southern press was denouncing me 
as wisliing to employ the army and navy of the United States 
in the liberation of the slaves. The many calumnious insinua- 
tions against my fidelity to the laws and state allegiance, I shall 
not condescend to repel. I say to those who are so insidiously 
attempting to prejudice me in the confidence of the whig party, 
that I shall nothing palliate nor deny ; conscious of my own 
duty to the American people, I have fearlessly discharged it ; 
and as I never played the sycophant to men for the sake of 
office, though sacrificing some personal pride in the cause of 
the political principles of that party, to some portion of which 
I owe nothing, so, in defeat, I have nothing to deplore but the 
common calamities of the country. 

To the people of Kentucky I would humlily suggest, that I 
am the son of one of the first pioneers of the West — a man 
who, in an obscure way, rendered some service to his country, 
both in the council and in the field ; he was one of the founders 
of the state Constitution, and his services were not unappre- 
ciated by those who hav'e perpetuated his memory, by giving 
his name to one of the counties of the commonwealth. I speak 
not of these things in a vain spirit, or from overweening filial 
affection, but to remind those men of yesterday, that they are 
presuming too much upon popular credulity, and their own sig- 



174 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

nificance, when they set themselves up as the exckisive guar- 
dians of the honor and welfare of the state, and undertake to 
denounce and ostracise me as an enemy of the country. Having 
some small interest in the soil, as well as in the good name of 
the commonwealth, with all of my humility and love of equality, 
I cannot but give utterance to some touches of contempt and 
indignation towards those feeders upon the crumbs which fall 
from other men's tables, who affect so much sensibiUty about 
the property of the country. If there is in our state something 
improper or dangerous to be talked or written about, I put it to 
every true and manly Kentuckian, if that thing is not improper 
and dangerous in its existence among us ? And if so, is he who 
undertakes to remove the evil the enemy of his country '} Or 
rather, is not that man, who, seeing the wrong, for the sake of 
popularity, and a narrow self-interest, in opposition to the welfare 
of the great mass of the people, dares not attempt its extinction, 
a traitor and a coward, and truly deserving the execration of his 
countrymen? I am not ashamed to admit, that I am the un- 
compromising foe of tyranny, wherever displayed ; and I proudly 
avow myself the eternal enemy of slavery. At the same time, 
experience-taught charity warns me to lose none of my sympathy 
for the slaveholder, because of his misfoitune or his fault : 
and whilst I would be just to the black, I am free to confess, 
that every feeling of association, and instinctive sentiment of 
self-elevation, lead me to seek the highest welfare of the white, 
whatever may be the consequences of liberation to the African. 
Bred among slaves, I regarded them with indifference, seeing 
no departure from luorals or economical progress in the tenure. 
The Emancipation movement about 1830, affected me as it did 
most persons at the time ; and I felt some new and pleasing 
emotions springing up in my bosom, when I had resolved, in 
t^^ common with my lamented brother, to liberate my slaves. I 
5 authorized him to put my name to the Emancipation Sogjety, 
/ formed about that time in Mercer county. In the same year I 
\ went on to Yale College, in a/ree state. I was not blind, and 
j I therefore saw a people living there luxuriously on a soil which 
, here would have been deemed the high road to femine and the 
alms-house. A city of ten or fifteen thousand inhabitants rose 
up in the morning, passed through all the busy strife of the day, 
and laid down at night, in quiet and security, and not a single 
police officer was anywhere to be seen. Here were more than 



ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF KENTUCKY. I75 

five hundred young men congregated from all climes, of various 
habits and tempeiaments, in the quick blood of youth, and all- 
conquering passion, and there was not found in all the city, so 
far as the public were aware, a single woman so fallen as to 
demand a less price for her love than honorable marriage. A 
grey-haired judge of seventy years and more, in a life-time of 
service, had pronounced sentence of death upon but five crimi- 
nals in a whole state ; and three of these went down to ruin by 
intemperance. I had been taught to regard Connecticut as a~ 
land of wooden nutmegs and leather pumpkin seed— yet there 
was a land of sterility without paupers, and a people where no 
man was to be found who could not write his name, and read 
his laws and his Bible. These were strange things ; but far 
more strange, passing strange will it be, Kentuckians, if you 
shall not come to the same conclusion to which I was compelled, 
that liberty, religion^ and education, were the cause of all these 
things, and the true foundation of individual happiness and 
national glory. In 183.5, 1 introduced a common school bill into 
the house of representatives of Kentucky ; it was lost. In 1838, 
I had the pleasure of voting for the present common school law, 
in common with a great majority of my compeers. Before 1840 
1 was firmly convinced, that universal education in a slave state 
was impossible ! Whilst I now write, the eight hundred thou- 
sand dollars set aside, from the proceeds of the sales of the 
public lands, for common schools, surreptitiously appropriated to 
internal improvements, confirm my conclusion. There is not a 
single cent, in the great commonwealth of Kentucky, appro- 
priated to the education of her people ! C. A. Wickliffe, in a 
convention of teachers in 1840, at Frankfort, said ; "If slavery 
and common schools be incompatible, I say, let slavery perish." 
The sentiment was met with tremendous applause. Men of 
Kentucky, what say you ? Time has proved that they are 
incompatible : not a single slave state has succeeded from the 
beginning, in tiie general education of her citizens. Governor 
Hammond, of South Carolina, says, in his message to the legis- 
lature ; " the free school system is a failure ; " " its failure is 
owing to the fact, that it does not suit our people or our govern- 
ment." Experience and reason have long since proclaimed the 
same unwelcome fact. 

Whilst Mr. Wicklifie was speculating I was acting. By aid 
of the law of 1833, I hoped ultimately to emancipate the state 



176 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

from ignorance, poverty, and crime. Kentucky called upon 
all her sons, by all the glorious memories of the past, by all 
the fond hopes of the future, to resist those who, by the repeal 
of that law, and a retrograde movement, would sink her into the 
ever during night and " lower deep" of perpetual slavery. The 
time had at last come when I w^as to play the selfish time-ser- 
ver for office and temporary elevation, or, planting myself on 
the eternal principles of truth, justice, and reason, looking to 
conscience, to posterity, and to God, to fall proudly in their 
cause. What though I be a "fanatic or an enthusiast" in 
holding that slavery is contrary to the declaration of American 
independence ; the Constitution of the United States ; the com- 
mon law of our English inheritance ; and in violation of the 
laws of nature and of God — the effects of it are beyond all con- 
troversy — the monumental hand of time has written them in 
characters of horrible distinctness, turning the dewy heavens 
into brass, and scathing the green earth with sterility and decay. 
The whole South cries out with anguish against this and that 
measure of national injury ; implores and denounces in alter- 
nate puerility ; makes and unmakes presidents ; enacts and re- 
peals laws with a petulance and recklessness, more worthy of 
manly mdignation, than the pitiable forbearance of the North. 
Yet no rehef comes to the sinking patient; her hypochondria- 
cal illusions are not dispelled ; she cannot, she will not see 
that slavery, nothing but slavery is the cause of her ruin. /Rer 
fields relapse into primitive sterility ; her population wastes 
away ; manufactures recede from the infected border ; trade 
languishes ; decay trenches upon her meagre accumulations of 
taste or utility ; gaunt famine stalks into the shattered portals 
of the homestead ; the hearth-stone is invaded by a more re- 
lentless intruder than the officer of the law •, and the castle 
that may stand before the sword, falls by this slow, secret, and 
resistless enemy ; the blood of the body politic is frozen at the 
core ; atrophy paralyses all its limbs ; sullen despair begins to 
display itself in the care-worn faces of men ; the heavens and 
the earth cry aloud, the eternal laws of happiness and exist- 
ence have been trampled under foot ; and yet, with a most pitia- 
ble infatuation, the South still clings to slavery. The competi- 
tion of unrequited service, slave labor, dooms the laboring white 
millions of these states to poverty ; poverty gives them over to 
ignorance ; and ignorance and poverty are the fast high roads 



ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF KENTUCKY. IJJ 

to crime and suffering.* / Among the more fortunate property 
holders, rehgion and moraUty are staggering and dying. Idle- 
ness, extravagance, mithriftiness, and want of energy, precipi- 
tate slaveholders into frequent and unheard of bankruptcies, 
such as are unknown in free states and w^ell-ordered monar- 
chies. The spirit of uncontrolled command vitiates our tem- 
peraments, and destroj's that evenness of temper, and equani- 
mity of soul, which are the sheet anchors of happiness and 
safety in a world of unattainable desire and inexorable evil. 
Population is sparse, and without numbers there is neither com- 
petition nor division of labor, and, of necessity, all mechanic 
arts languish among us.t Agriculture drags along its slow 
pace with slovenly, ignorant, reckless labor. Science, literature, 
and art, are strangers here ; poets, historians, artists, and ma- 
chinists ; the lovers of the ideal, the great, the beautiful, the 
true, and the useful ; the untiring searches into the hidden 
treasures of unwilling nature, making the winds, the waters, 
the palpable and the impalpable essences of things, tributary 
to man : creating gratification for the body, and giving new sus- 
ceptibility and expansion to the soul ; they flourish where 
thought and action are untrammeled ; ever daring must be the 
spirit of genius ; its omnipotence belongs only to the free. A 
loose and inadequate respect for the rights of property, of neces- 
sity follows in the wake of slavery. Duelling, bloodshed, and 
Lynch law leave but little security to person. A general de- 
moralization has corrupted the first minds in the nation ; its 
hot contagion has spread among the whole people ; licentious- 
ness, crime, and bitter hate infest us at home ; repudiation, 
and the forcible propagandism of slavery, is arraying against 
us the world in arms. I appeal to history, to reason, to nature, 
and to conscience, which neither time nor space, nor fear, nor 
hate, nor hope of reward, nor crime, nor pride, nor selfishness, 
can utterly silence— are not these things true ? A minute com- 
parison of the free and slave states, so often and ably made, I 
forbear. I leave this unwilling and bitter proof to each man's 

* In 1843 there were in Kentucky but 31,495 slave-holders; the ratio of the 
slave-holders to the whole population of the South, is about 1 to 25. 

tit is estimated that in 1833, the mechanical power of machinery in England 
performed the labor of 400,000,000 of men. What else than poverty can we 
expect when slavery and free trade expose us to this awfully unequal compe- 
tition. 

12 



178 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

observation and reflection. There is, however, one considera- 
tion which I would urge upon all, because it excludes all 
" fanaticism and enthusiasm." Kentucky will be richer in dol- 
lars and cents by emancipation, and slaveholders will be the 
wealthier by the change. 

^\ assert, from my own knowledge, that lands of the same 
quality in the free, are from a hundred to a hundred and fifty 
per cent, higher in value than in the slave states : in some cases, 
probably, six hundred per cent, higher ! Lands six miles from 
Cincinnati, in Ohio, I am credibly informed, are worth sixty 
dollars per acre, whilst in Kentucky, the same distance from 
that city, and of the same quality, they are worth only ten 
dollars per acre ! Now the slaveholders of the state are, with 
rare exceptions, the landholders of the state ; they, therefore, 
absolutely increase their fortune by liberating their slaves, even 
without co77ipe7isationy/Thns if I own a thousand acres of 
land in Fayette, it is worth fifty thousand dollars ; say I own 
twelve slaves worth five thousand dollars, the probable ratio 
between land and slaves ; if my land rise to the value of the 
free state standard, which it must do, my estate becomes worth 
(losing the value of the slaves, five thousand dollars), ninety-five 
thousand dollars.* If it rises to a hundred and fifty dollars per 
acre, three times its present value, as I most sincerely believe it 
would do in twenty years after emancipation, the man owning 
a thousand acres of land, now worth fifty dollars per acre, would 
be worth, under the free system, a hundred and forty-five 
thousand dollars. Now this assertion is fully proven by facts 
open to all. Kentucky was settled by wealthy emigrants ; 
Ohio by mere laborers mostly. Kentucky has forty-two thou- 
sand square miles in area; Ohio but forty thousand. Kentucky 
is the senior of Ohio by nearly one half of the existence of the 
latter. Kentucky is the superior of Ohio in soil, climate, 
minerals, and timber, to say nothing of the beauty of her 
surface — and yet Ohio's taxes, for 1843, amounted to two 
million three hundred and sixty-one thousand four hundred 
and eighty-two dollars, and eighty-one cents, whilst Kentucky's 



* The recent visit of the Quakers to the West Indies confirms this view. 
They say in many places the land is now worth as much as both land and 
slaves were during slavery. — See " Visit to the West Indies, 1840-41," published 
1844, Philadelphia. 



ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF KENTUCKY. Ijg 

tax is only three hundred and forty-three thousand six hundred 
and seventeen dollars, seventy-six cents. Thus showing Ohio's 
superior productive energy over Kentucky. Ohio has twenty- 
three electoral votes to our twelve, and outstrips us in about the 
same ratio in all things else. A comparison of the older free 
and slave states will show a much more favorable balance 
sheet to the free labor states ; whilst the slave states have 
greatly the advantage in climate and soil, to say nothing of the 
vastly greater extent of the territory of the slave states.* 

Massachusetts produces more in gross manufactures yearly, 
than all the cotton in the Union sells for!t Let Louisville look 
to Cincinnati, and ask herself how many millions of dollars 
slavery costs her ? All our towns dwindle, and our farmers 
lose, in consequence, all home markets. Every farmer bought 
out by the slave system, sends off one of the consumers of the 
manufactures of the town : when the consumers are gone, the 
mechanic must go also. A has acquired another thousand 
acres of land, but B has gone to Ohio with the fiftj thousand 
dollars paid for it, and the state is that much the poorer in the 
aggregate. A has increased in his- apparent means, but his 
market has flown to lands governed by n'lser heads than the 
land of slavery can boast. Beef from Fayette sold this spring 
in the city of New York for six doAars per hundred ; but the 
expense of carriage was three dollars per hundred ; thus, for 
want of a home market, wh'^h cannot exist in a slave state, 
the beef raiser loses one hal/ of the yearhj inoceeds of his farm. 
Slavery costs every mi^n in the community about the saine 
price — one half and more of the proceeds of his labor, as the 
price of lands have shown ! 

Political di'liculties thicken round us ; war for the perpetua- 
tion of this curse, threatens us in the distance ; dark clouds of 
bloodshed, dissolution, and utter ruin, lower on the horizon : 
(ho great national heart lies bleeding in the dust, under the 
relentless heel of the slave power ! It requires no very quick 
eye to see that the political power of Kentucky is gone for ever, 
unless she takes a new tack, and revives under the free labor 
system. Having, in truth, no common interest with the slave- 



? There are, in the free states, leaving out Michigan, 291,435 square miles; 
and the slave states, leaving out Arkansas, 482,780 square miles. 

t See the address of James Tallmadge before the American Institute, 1844. 



ISO THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

holding policy of the South, we bear all the evils of the alliance, 
without any of the supposed compensating benefits which 
slavery confers upon the cultivators of rice, sugar, and cotton.* 
The South is beginning to be supplied with produce from states 
nearer them in distance and facilities of transportation than 
ours, whilst she is already too poor to buy from us ; we look for 
markets almost exclusively to Cincinnati, and New York, and 
New Orleans, which last is but the outlet to the other nations. 
Until Kentucky is prepared to go all lengths for slavery, she is 
powerless ; not pro-slavery enough for " the chivalry," nor free 
enough for the /ree, between two stools she flounders on the 
ground. 

Christians, moralists, politicians, and merely let-live laborers 
feel these bitter truths. Kentucky never will unite herself to 
the slave empire, born of Southern disunion : then let her at 
once lead on the van of freedom. Is the cry of liberty less 
powerful than slavery to move the hearts of men? Let us, 
then, be jnst and fear not. Let us liberate our slaves, and 
make friends instead of enemies for the evil day ; for all the 
signs of the times proclaim that the elements of revolution are 
among us ; when I'ae crisis comes, if we are free, all will be 
safe ; if not, no man t-in see the end.t British emancipation 
has gone before us, proving all things safe. The price of land 
in the colonies is admitted on all hands to have risen in value, 
in spite of all the enemies of freedom ; these are the eternal and 
undisputable proofs of successful reform.t The day you strike 
off the bonds of slavery, experience and statistics prove the 
prophecy of Thomas Jefferson, that the raiio of the increase of 
the blacks upon a given basis, diminishes, compared with the 
increase in slavery ; whilst the influx of white immigration 
swallows up the great mass of the African race, in th*^, progress 

* The only argumcjnt left to the pro-slavery party is, hemp cannot be raised 
without slave labor! If rielicule be more potent than argument, then is slavery 
perpetrating suicide most etfectualJy. Quattlebum can't save it. 

t See the appeal to the people of Massachusetts on the annexation of Texas. 

X Some thick headed " anti-fanatical " politicians affect to consider British 
emancipation a failure, because the imports and exports are less since emanci- 
pation than before. Every one knovirs that in planting with slave labor, 
simplicity is always aimed at, hence great exports of sugar, &c. ; but under the 
free system, many articles of subsistence are cultivated instead of sugar. The 
price of land is, therefore, the only true test of prosperity, — See " Visit to the 
West Indies." 



ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF KENTUCKY. Igl 

and civilization of the more energetic white. Amalgamation of 
the two races, so affectedly dreaded by some pro-slavery men, 
is far less in the free than in the slave states ; this all men 
know from observation ; what a little reflection would have 
enabled them, a priori^ to have determined. Many of the more 
faithful and industrious slaves may be employed by their quan- 
dam masteis, whilst the idle and vicious must suffer the conse- 
quences of their folly. Stealing will not increase, as some argue, 
but be diminished ; for vigilance will be more active, and pun- 
ishment more certain and severe. Let candidates he started hi 
all the counties in favor of a convention^ and run ag-ain and 
again, till victory shall perch on the standard of the free. 
Whether emancipation be remote or immediate, regard must 
be had to the rights of owners, the habits of the old, and the 
general good feeling of the people. To those who cry out for 
ever. What shall be done with tlie freed slaves? it will occur that 
upon this plan, no more will be left among us than we shall 
absolutely need, for we have every reason to suppose that many 
of the opponents of the movement will leave us before its con- 
summation, taking their slaves with them : and the state 
ought not to, if she could, at once deprive herself of the slave 
lal)orers now here. 

Then let us, having no regard to the clamors of tlie ultras 
of the North or the South, move on unshaken in our purpose, 
to the glorious end. Shall sensible men be for ever deluded by 
the silly cry of "abolitionist?" is this not becoming not only 
ridiculous, but contemptible? Can you not see that many base 
demagogues have been crying out wolf, whilst they were 
playing the traitors to their party and the country for personal 
elevation ? Is it not time that some sense of returning justice 
should revive in your bosoms, and that you should cease to 
denounce those who in defeat do not forget their integrity, and 
who, though fallen, do not despair of the republic ? 

Washington. Jefferson, and Madison, and the great founders 
of the republic, are my standard bearers — Liberty and Union is 
my motto. Never yet has a Kentuckian deserted his (jountry's 
standard, and fled the field. Shall I be the first to prove recreant 
to the sentiment which should ever be uppermost in the bosoms 
of the gallant and the free, when danger, no matter whether of 
the sword, or more damning despotism threatens his native land? 



182 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

— " Think through whom 
Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake. 
And then strike home 5 " 

I have given my slaves freedom for the pubh'c g^ood. Is 
more needed ? Tax me to the verge of sustenance and hfe, 
and make my country free! I call upon all Kentucky to 
speak out upon this subject ; let each man come to the press 
in his own name : let us hear others — hear all. Trust not 
those who in j^^ivate whisper approval in your ear^ hut 
denoxince the open advocates of the same admissions. I do 
not profess to be infallible ; if I am wrong, show me the right ; 
no man will do more, suffer more for conciliation. I listen to 
advice, I implore counsel ; but neither denunciation, nor pro- 
scription, nor persecution, shall silence me ; and so far as the 
voice of one individual makes up the omnipotence of public 
will, I say, Kentucky shall be free. Let no man be startled ; a 
few years ago most men looked upon slaveiy as a matter of 
course ; a thing of necessity, which was to live for centuries. 
Now, few are so hardy as to deny that some twenty or thirty 
years will witness its extinction. 

The time is, in ray judgment, yet nearer at hand. A space 
of three counties deep, lying along the Ohio river, contains u 
decided majority of the people of the state, as well as the 
greater part of the soil. How long before slaves there will be, 
from obvious causes, utterly useless ? Soon, very soon, will 
they find themselves bearing all the evils of slavery, without 
any, the least remuneration. Does any man believe that they 
will tamely submit to this intolerable grievance ? If slavery 
does not tumble down of itself, they will vote it down, for they 
will have the jjower, and it will be their interest to do so. 
The rich interior counties of the state have the least need of 
slave labor of any portion of the globe. The mountains are 
ruined by the decreasing population of the lowlands, and the 
inability to consume their products, where slaves abound. The 
Green River country should remember that if Pandora's box 
was opened again upon mankind, two greater curses and fore- 
runners of poverty and ruin, than slaves and tobacco, covdd not 
be found ! Kentuckians, be worthy of your past fame — be 
heroes once more. God has not designed this most favored 
land to be occupied by an inferior race. Itahan skies mantle 



ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF KENTUCKY. 183 

over us, and more than Sicilian luxuriance is spread beneath 
our feet. Give us free labor, and we shall indeed become 
" the garden of the worlds But what if not ? Man was not 
created only for the eating of Indian meal ; the mind— the 
soul must be fed, as well as the body. The same spirit which 
led us on to the battle field, gloriously to illustrate the national 
name, yet lives in the hearts of our people ; they feel their false 
position ; their impotency of future accomplishment. This 
weigh t must be removed. Kentucky must be free. 

Cassius M. Clay. 
' Lexington, Ky., Januarij, 1845. 



From the New York Tribune. 

LETTER TO MR. CLAY. 

New- York, 9th Jan., 1846. 
Cassius M, Clay, Esq. : 

Dear Sir — Having heard with pleasure, of your arrival in 
New- York, we venture to express the hope that, before your 
departure, you may be induced to address a public assembly on 
the subject with which your name and character have been of 
late so prominently identified. Believing it to be alike due to 
you and to the cause of human freedom, that you should have 
an opportunity, untrammeled by any party associations, to lay 
before the people of New-York the views of slavery, which, as 
a southern man, you are known to entertain, we take the liber- 
ty of asking you if it will suit your inclination and convenience 
to address a public meeting on some evening during your stay 
amongst us. 

We should, for ourselves, be pleased to hear you, and we 
doubt not that there are other of our citizens who have a simi- 
lar desire, and would cheerfully attend a meeting for that 
purpose. 

We are, dear sir, with great respect. 

Your fellow-citizens, 
Edward Curtis, ♦ Orville Dewey, 

E. C. Benedict, Hiram Ketchum, 

R. M. Blatchford, James Harper. 
John Inman, Horace Greeley, 

Edward Dayton, David B. Ogden, 

Henry W. Bellows, John Jay, 
Isaac T. Hopper. 



LETTER TO NEW YORK COMMITTEE. 185 

Mr. Clay's Reply. 

AsTOR House, Jan. 9, 1846. 
Gentlemen : 

I had the honor of receiving to-day your very kind and flat- 
tering letter, inviting me to address the citizens of New York, 
" in the cause of hinnan freedom." 

Beheving, as I do, that the cause in which I am engaged — • 
Constitutional, Equal Liberty — is not bounded by the imagi- 
nary hues of states or nations, I accept your invitation ; hoping 
to excite in the minds of New Yorkers, a train of reflection that 
will result in some good to our unhappy republic. 

Standing, as I do, to some extent, isolated from party rule and 
the power of numbers, with no other support and alliance than 
truth, and the unerring instincts of an honest heart, my only 
guide, I sliall ever gratefully appreciate that true nobility of 
soul wliich has moved you — men, whose elevated standing and 
acknowledged judgment will not be questioned, in a time-serving 
age — to come up and give me a helping hand, at this critical 
time in my humble life. 

I will address you at any time and place you may name, 
between now and Wednesday next. 

I have the honor to be, your ob't. serv't., 

Cassius M. Clay. 

To Messrs. Edward Curtis, Orville Dew^ey, E. C. Benedict, 
Hiram Ketchum, R. M. Blatchford, James Harper, John 
Inman, Horace Greeley, Edward Dayton, David B. Ogden, 
Henry W. Bellows, John Jay, Isaac T. Hopper. 



THE MEETING AND THE SPEECH. 

The largest and most respectable concourse ever assembled 
under one roof in the city of New^ York, convened at the Broad- 
way Tal)ernacle last evening, to testify their admiration of, and 
sympathy for Cassius M. Clay of Kentucky, in his intrepid 
struggles and generous sacrifices for the cause of universal free- 
dom, and to hear him speak in behalf of the policy, economy, 
necessity, and eternal justice of emancipating all who are held 
m bondage, except for their own crimes. The spacious Taber- 
nacle was crowded before the hour (seven o'clock) fixed for the 



186 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

opening of the meeting, though it will accommodate some three 
thousand persons, and soon every nook and aisle was densely 
packed with eager, enthusiastic freemen. «No such audience 
was ever before crowded into the Tabernacle, and thousands 
went away unable to obtain standing room within the walls of 
the edifice. 

Precisely at seven o'clock, Mr. Claj'^ was introduced to the 
audience by H. Greeley, with a few words of allusion to his 
past history and present attitude, and was received on rising 
with rapturous acclamations. Mr. Clay took the stand, and 
enchained the auditors for fully two hours, laboring under some 
embarrassment at first, from the immensity of the audience, 
the enthusiasm of his reception, and the difficulty of making 
himself heard by all, but warming as he proceeded with the 
fervor of patriotism and love of humanity, stimulated by the 
cheers of the sympathizing thousands, and gradually rising to 
higher and still higher flights of the noblest eloquence. The 
following is a condensed report of his speech : 

He commenced with a few preliminary remarks, in which he 
stated that if we looked back through past history, and noticed 
the development of the human mind and its results, we were 
always enabled to trace something upon the tablet of time, by 
which to guide us in carrying on the progress of mind to a still 
higher state of human development. He added that, therefore, 
he claimed for himse.lf no merit for originality in his eflforts ; he 
had merely attempted to take up that which he had learned by 
rote, and to add his mite to that which was already before the 
intelligence of the world. 

We, of the United States, claim to be the first people who 
laid down the true basis of the government of men. It is this : 
that government consists of one omnipotent principle — that men 
associated together in a civilized state shall obtain a greater 
amount of liberty than they can whilst living in the natural 
state. That it should give to all associated under it, the same 
rights and equal liberty ; and if a government does not sliow 
that it does this — if it shall in any way trench on the rights of 
any portion of the governed, then I say that that government 
ought to perish, whether it be a republic or a monarchy. [Here 
there was considerable applause, and a few faint hisses.] 
And that government which cuts off a portion from any of 
their rights, and leaves them even worse than they were in the 



SPEECH IN NEW YORK. 187 

natural state, ought not to, and cannot by any possibility, be a 
permanent government. [Applause.] 

AVhilst I am not insensible to the injuries inflicted on the 
African race — the almost countless miseries and tortures which 
many of them have endured for centuries ; whilst I admit fully 
that God has given rights which are marked clearly on the 
most dusky face of that injured race, still I must insist, that I 
am mainly actuated by a still higher motive — the greater motive 
of achieving the complete independence and liberty of my own, 
the white Anglo-Saxon race of America ! [Much applause.] 
And God has so ordered it that you cannot trench upon any — 
the humblest, meanest link in the great chain of humanity — but 
tlie injury will reach to the highest link, and draw all down 
with it to destruction. [Applause.] I advocate, then, not only 
the interests and liberties of the African, but also those of the 
eighteen million of whites who should have been freemen on 
tiiis soil of the United States. [Loud applause.] 

Men, we are told by some, are influenced in the long run by 
their interest ; others there are who say, that most men are 
mainly influenced by the nobler and truest principles of the 
human heart. But I wish you to bear in mind this higher 
truth ; which is, that justice and interest go together. [Much 
applause.] When will men learn it? 

I do not assume any peculiar sagacity, or any peculiar merit, 
for adv^ocating emancipation in all the slave states of the Union. 
I had only to lift up my eyes and see what was going on around 
me daily, and the conviction forced itself upon me. [Applause.] 
Was I ambitious of power, of wealth, of numbers ? The con- 
viction forced itself on me that these were much more abundant 
in the free states of the Union. Was I fond of the fine arts — • 
of painting, of sculpture, of music, of poetry, of all that consti- 
tutes the embodiment of the beautiful and true ? I saw that all 
these existed in a much higher degree of excellence in the free 
than in the slave states. Did I look at the subject of education ? 
I saw that the mind developed itself to a far greater degree in 
the free than in the slave states, with the added conviction, that 
it always had so done, and would continue so to do tinough all 
time. [Applause.] So that, if in the course I am pursuing, I 
am a madman, if I am a fanatic, I do not desire to destroy those 
glorious developments of art and science — those luxuries of re- 
finement and high civilization, of which those who aflTect to cast 



188 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

such an imputation on me, claim to be the executive conserva- 
tors. [Applause.] 

If I had seen this thing only once developed, if I had seen the 
struggle only once tried, I might have doubted. But thirteen times 
has the battle been fought on the question, whether man most 
usefully belongs to himself, or to another ; and thirteen times 
has it been decided in favor of liberty ! [Applause.] Was not 
this enough ? 

Until since the period when it has been customary to take the 
census of all the products and manufactures of the United States, 
if you talked to a man about freedom as compared with slaver)^, 
he'd say, " look to the cotton crop." And he'd tell you it was 
the great staple — the only source of wealth we produced, to take 
to Europe, in order to get back thence what we wanted for our 
use in this country. But Gen. Tallmadge told us in his recent 
address before the American Institute of this city, that the little 
state of Massachusetts produced more in manufactures (in the 
gross, it is true) than the value of the whole cotton crop of the 
United States. [Loud applause.] But the slaveholders argue 
that this manufacturing wealth is produced from a part of the 
cotton crop itself. How is this ? Let us see. You see the 
$60,000,000 of cotton that goes from the ports of Charleston, 
Savannah, Mobile, and New Orleans, annually : but you do not 
see the $60,000,000 which comes North, to buy mules, and 
clothing, and implements of agriculture, and other matters for 
the negro. So that after all, the assertion is true to the letter, 
that the little state of Massachusetts does produce more wealth 
than the value of the whole cotton crop of the United States. 
[Applause.] Will you look to that ? 

You hear of an intended railroad that is to be constructed 
from Memphis through the wilds of the far West. Why, you'll 
find that there is not capital enough in the whole South to build 
it. [Laughter and applause.] But, you'll find, by and by, when 
there are a sufficient number of people w^io desire to travel in 
that direction, some shrewd and enterprising Yankee will start 
up, and find the capital, while other ingenious Yankees will go 
out and build it. [Increased laughter and applause.] 

Look to the Mechanic Arts. If you inquire at the Patent 
Office at Washington, relative to those results of the extraordi- 
nary skill, ingenuity, and inventive faculties of our countrymen, 
you will find that ninety-nine out of a hundred are from the 



SrEECH IN NEW YORK. 189 

Nortliern states. ' [Applause.] Have you thought of that, men 
of the South ? for I know that I am speaking to many Southern 
men, besides many from my own state of Kentucky. This is 
enough to prove that position, though in relation to matters of 
mechanical skill, I might go on ad infinitum, to show^ the supe- 
riority of the free over the slave states. [Applause.] 

How about agriculture ? The actual territory — I mean that 
which is strictly tillable and profitable territory or susceptible of 
profit is in the South perhaps foiw times greater than that 
of the North, and yet look at the products. Have you ever 
reflected on this? And with regard to all those great public 
works of improvement, there is hardly any thing in the South 
that can begin to compare with those of the North. And if 
there is no political change there, we shall remain so for ever ! 
Remain so? No, we shall recede farther and farther from 
being able to hold any comparison with the North. [Applause.] 

I know that there are shrewd men and intelhgent, as they 
are accounted, who contend that it is better to keep these 
3,000,000 of human beings in slavery, because we get the 
proceeds or profits of their labors. But if this be true— which 
it is not, — if this were true— frightful as it would be thus to 
obtain wealth only by human sulTering and blood — by tramp- 
ling into the dust all human rights and blessings, — how much 
more horrible it must be to find, that with all this outrage such 
is not the case ; — that gold being the God they worshipped — 
when by violation of all laws human and divine they expected 
to grasp it — they found nothing but an ashen apple remained — 
to their utter destruction. [Much applause mingled with a few 
hisses.] 

The truth is, that free intelhgent labor Avill effect twice as 
much as labor driven with the whip or by compulsion. Have 
you thought of that? In the South there are 3,000,000 of 
blacks, and 5,000,000 of whites. Now, throw out of consider- 
ation, if you please, the 3,000,000 of blacks, and take the 
5,000,000 of whites, who, not so accustomed to toil, we are 
satisfied, perform at least not more than one-third the labor 
of those at the North ; say one-half. Admit that the laborer at 
the North produced $25 a month, that at the South would be 
$12 50. The white laborer at the South would then produce 
$150 a year, and the Northerner $300. Multiply this by 
5,000,000, it gives you $1,500,000,000 annually ; which would 



190 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

be produced by the whites at the South, if they worked as 
those do at the North. But with only half of this labor, it gives 
a result of $750,000,000. which might easily be produced annu- 
ally, by free white labor at the South. [Applause.] Turn 
round and put this $750,000,000 against the $60,000,000 
cotton crop [applause], and they would have by this means 
$690,000,000 more to exchange for the products of the North, 
than they now have by means of slavery and the cotton crop. 
[Applause.] I know it is said that the whites would be in the 
habit of more nearly living up to their income ; but no man 
who has been an observer of the commercial concerns of the 
country, can fail to observe that all classes, under such a 
system, would have largely more to expend, even if they did 
live more extravagantly, than when they had a total of only 
$60,000,000. [Applause.] So that justice and truth are the 
true policy. It is the best expediency. Honesty, as in the old 
proverb, is the best policy after all. [Applause.] And you 
have only to have the heart to wish, and the energy to carry it 
out, and blessed as it will be by God, it must succeed. [Ap- 
plause.] The history of all past time, and the very nature of 
things, prove incontestibly that this must be so. [Loud and 
continued applause.] 

Let us inquire, as to mental development between the two 
sections. A young man [a school-mate of mine at Yale Col- 
lege] went from New-Haven to Virginia ; and, in order, 1 
suppose, to make his book sell, he gave the private history of 
several of the F. F. V.'s. He came to Kentucky, and I said to 
him. " Well, you've come from the land of wooden nutmegs 
and leather-pumpkin-seeds [laughter], and you've been to the 
Old Dominion, the land of the F. F. V.'s, and what have you 
found there?" "Why," said the young man, "I've found 
nothing ; there are not three literarij men in the state." 
[Laughter.] And it is so, out of politics and law. The rem- 
nants of the nobility and the cavaliers have gone down to obli- 
vion, leaving nothing bright or permanent behind them. And 
yet, in that small state of Connecticut, not less than fifty-nine 
men have made for themselves a national reputation that will live 
with the land's language, beside their great and varied achieve- 
ments in the mechanic arts, science, and philosophy. [Ap- 
plause.] 

Who are your historians ? There is but one response. Turn 



SPEECH IN NEW YORK. 191 

to Griswold's book of the Poets of America, and how many do 
you find there that come south of Mason & Dixon's Hne ? Go 
to the courts and high places of Europe ; look at those who 
have distinguished themselves honorably abroad, in numerous 
waj^s ; and whom do you find ? Northern men, who have risen 
from the body of the people by the power of their intellect ! [Ap- 
plause.] ' But yet sirs,' say the Southern men, ' we have hitherto 
always governed you !' It is too true ! ' We have our feet on your 
neck.' It is too true. [Applause and a few hisses.] Almost now, 
certainly in a short time, and you'll not find a man or woman in 
the Northern states who cannot read or write. [Applause.] And 
yet what numbers you may find in the South, who can do neither ! 

I love the South ! [Applause.] It is my birth-place. I am 
not a Southern man with Northern principles ! [Applause and 
laughter.] I love my country, and I would make her great and 
glorious. [Much applause.] And it is because I rcould make 
her great and glorious, that I thus tell her of her faults. [Very 
general applause.] 

Shall I speak of the morals of the South ? That other por- 
tion of the human being, forming the great unity ? They tell 
us in the South, that slavery is the great shield of morality, in 
the whites. If that were true, which it is not — if that were 
even true, yet who could say that God is a God of justice and 
of mercy, and yet admit it as an argument? As well might 
you point to the state of society in Great Britain, and argue in 
relation to the classes there, that there was less crime among 
the aristocracy of England, than among the great mass? 
Would that be a fair comparison ? No. You must take the 
mass of men and women as you find them ; and thus, in your 
statistics of morals, you would have there to dot down three 
million of abandoned men and women, the slaves, to begin 
with, and that at once shuts out all comparison. Have you 
looked at the records of blood and murder ? at the fatal rencon- 
tres? at the street fights? at the duels? — where, not by man's 
code, though in the eye of God, the deliberate killing of a jnan 
in an arranged fight, is as much murder as stabbing him in the 
dark- Where are your divorces most numerous? where but in 
the South, with several hundreds annually ; and yet we are 
told that chastity in the South far exceeds what exists in the 
North. [Applause.] 

It is an inevitable result of the laws of God and man, that 



192 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M, CLAY. 

where a man habitually violates one great law, he will — ^but 
with here and there an exception — sooner or later, violate all 
the rest. This very principle of slavery is the subversion of the 
greatest law of nature, self-defence. It is the law of force ; and 
when that law of force — when Lynch law is abolished — then 
slavery dies. [Much applause and considerable hissing.] And 
yet there are many who smooth back their hair and look grave, 
and roll up their eyes, and say that they wish that man, Clay, 
well, but that he's too violent ; he's too harsh ; he uses arms in 
his own defence. [Laughter.] But suppose a man were to be 
stopped on the highway, or fall into a band of robbers (I use 
the terms here in no offensive sense), and he had a sword by his 
side, which ought he to use, his tongue or his sword ? 

[A gentleman (sitting right in front of Mr. Clay, with a lady 
by his side), "His sword, to be sure." [Much laughter.] 

Mr. Clay, Why, certainly ; for if he did n't, he might be call- 
ed a pretty good fellow, but he'd be sure to have his pocket 
thoroughly picked. [Increased laughter.] So, therefore, I say 
to you, churchmen, who sit in the high places of the sanctuary, 
and enter into the inner places of the temple, that so far as we 
know any thing of the Divine nature, slavery subverts it com- 
pletely; and where slavery exists, there true morality cannot exist. 
There are men amongst those institutions that I love and re- 
verence ; and, therefore, I tell them they stand on a sandy 
foundation — one that cannot stand the test of Divine law, and, 
therefore, I would have them leave, and leave suddenly. [Ap- 
plause.] It is true, that in some quarters the conscience may be 
touched, but there remains still, the seminal evil. [Applause.] 

I told them long before the mob of the eighteenth of August, 
that though there was a love of morality and order amongst 
them, yet that the few bad spirits would concentrate and over- 
turn their good purposes. And so it will ever be. And be- 
cause I fully acknowledge that the Church has in all ages sown 
the seeds of truth, virtue, morality, therefore, I invoke all its 
leaders to see if slavery be sin or no. They will see that it will 
not stand the test. Thus, I ask, that they warn their fellow- 
men, that those who hold their fellow men in bondage cannot 
belong to the church of Him who said, "Do unto others as ye 
would others should do unto you." [Much applause, with con- 
siderable hissing.] 

' Slavery has powerfully affected us politically. Our forefathers 



SPEECH IN NEW YORK. 193 

felt this when they were about to inquire what was just and 
true. They started then with this fact, that all men were born 
equal — equally entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
ness. Nor was this a mere rhetorical flourish, as has been so 
frequently, so impudently asserted. [Applause.] It is true that 
some pretend to conibat this, and say that all men are not born 
equal. In one sense, this may be argued to a very limited ex- 
tent ; but I am prepared to prove, that the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence is true in theory, and true in fact. [Applause.] Some 
men are born with much wisdom, and some are born fools ; are 
they equal ? No. Some are born with much personal beauty, 
and some deformed ; are they equal ? No. So with the one 
born wealthy, and the other poor. But what was the sense in 
which our fathers meant tliat all men are born equal ? In a 
political sense — in iiis being governed by man, and as between 
God and his fellow-man, he is, to all intents and purposes, equal. 
[Applause and hisses, and a cry of "A nigger is not a white 
man's equal] And though I be born poor, and dirty, and rag- 
ged, and crooked, yet I am entitled to equal protection from the 
laws, and to equal political rights. [Much applause.] And, if 
anywhere within the range of this government, as now admin- 
istered, it shall be found that man is not considered as entitled 
to equal political rights, that portion of it must fall, and every 
good n)an will say, " Amen." [Loud applause, and considera- 
ble hissing.] 

The great principle of government is, that it is bound to pro- 
cure man more liberty in the social state than he can procure 
in the natural state ; and the government which says to a man, 
'• You shall not possess your own wife, you shall not have your 
own child, you shall not select and enjoy your own home, you 
shall not take medicine from the doctor of your own selection," 
&.C., &c., that government subverts every principle for which it 
was formed ; and if God is just it will be dissolved. [Much ap- 
j)lause and hisses.] 

At the formation of the Constitution, in 1789, we had then 
fought a long and doubtful war ; and our fathers were induced 
(o form a certain alliance with the South ; and thus that clause 
was introduced which has been subversive of all those princi- 
ples for which they began the war. They agreed that slavery 
should exist in the Soutli until the South should choose to throw 
it off in its own good time and pleasure. This fact, it is true, 
13 



194 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

has been denied by some, who in their zeal for freedom have 
gone too far. But I regret that any man should go beyond the 
true principle for which he ought to contend, because such a 
course is calculated to bring the whole cause into disrepute, 
[Applause.] There was, then, an agreement that slavery should 
exist in the Southern states. And there was a farther agree- 
ment — more's the pity — that if a slave escaped to a free state 
the latter should return him into slavery ; and also, that none 
should be introduced from Africa, subsequent to 1808. [Ap- 
plause.] So, therefore, the North joined hands with the Sou^th 
in this matter, and departed from the great principle for which 
they had fought the bloody battles of the revolution. [Ap- 
plause.] So, therefore, if slavery still exists in the South, you 
of the North are equally guilty of its existence. But if there be 
an extension of slavery over other territory of the Union, you 
men of the North, are far more guilty than others, because you 
do evil ivith far less temptatio7i ! [Much applause.] 

Let us see how this operated in actual practice. The framers 
of the Constitution (with the exception of the slave states), of 
1789, formed a free Constitution, so far as they had the power 
to do so, and pledged themselves to the world to work for hu- 
man rights and liberty ; and that this should be a government 
of freedom so far as it should be extended in all time. Nor 
should we forget the blood they had shed for this purpose ! 
[Applause.] They said that none should be deprived of life 
and liberty without law ! What crime, then, have the black 
people of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, 
Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennes- 
see, and Kentucky committed, that, so far as they are concern- 
ed, this Constitution lies slumbering with the dead usages of 
past ages ? Our fathers meant that this Constitution should be 
carried out and fully vindicated. For this they freely shed their 
blood and treasure. And if we are but true to ourselves (so far 
as our blood and treasuie are concerned), it shall bo vindicated. 
And God save the right. [Great applause and hissing.] 

You will find that Washington, and Lee, and Henry, and 
Madison, and most of the Southern men (except those of Geor- 
gia and South Carolina), the entire delegation from the South 
to the Convention, looked to the time as not far distant when 
there would be no slavery at the South. And all their actions 
clearly showed that they wished it so thoroughly abolished that 



SPEECH IN NEW YORK. 195 

both the name and the memory of it should soon pass away 
from the minds of men. [Applause.] In Madison's speech you 
find he says that " Man can have no property in man." And 
still more strikingly is this feeling shown in the private corre- 
spondence of these men. Washington, writing to a friend in 
Pennsylvania, tells him to come to Virginia, for that when 
slavery should be extinct, and that soon, the land, now more 
valuable and cheaper than in Pennsylvania, would then be 
three times more valuable. [Applause.] But what has been 
the result ? Could Washington have contemplated it ? In 
Pennsylvania, the land is now worth from one hundred dollars 
to three hundred dollars per acre, whilst that Virginia land is 
unoccupied by man, and traversed only by the wild beasts of the 
forest. And many of those beautiful farms that were cultivated 
to such great advantage by Washington, are now deserted, and 
the houses unoccupied. [Great sensation.] 

Many intelligent gentlemen have declared that these glorious 
designs of those great men would have been carried out, if it 
had not been for the invention of the cotton gin, and the rise 
in value of that staple. But as it was, our fathers took the 
back track, and declared, as far as they were concerned, that 
Liberty should be extinguished. Shall it be done? 
Several Voices. No. 

Mr. Clay. Now let us see how the South progressed iii 
their plan to perpetuate slavery. They set about to monopo- 
lize all the important offices in the country. And they got them. 
[Laughter and applause.] They then set about to pass laws 
by which free labor should be less valued than slave labor ; and 
they accomplished that. They then devised ways and means 
by which slave labor should be especially looked after and pro- 
tected ; and they accomplished that. And all the laws which 
they passed were to elevate the labor of the slave, and depress 
that of the free white man. And they accomplished all this. 
[Laughter and applause.] And, notwithstanding all this, they 
were determined to have a large extension of slave territory ; 
and (hey accomplished all this too. [Increased laughter and 
applause.] 

First, they took Louisiana (three states.) Let us say that 
Louisiana is the great entrepot for the commerce of the south- 
west — admit all its peculiar advantages ; we should have bought 
it, but have let it be free. But they confounded the two inte- 



196 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

rests together, and made a slave empire of it. They then tm-ned 
their attention to Florida, for another small slave empire to 
check the march of freedom ; and they accomplished that. 
And not only did they get all this extent of slave region, but 
they farther willed to take a territory, Texas, making forty 
states as large as Massachusetts ; and they accomplished that 
also. [Much applause and laughter, and loud hisses.] 

Mr. Clay. You hiss, because you have guilt upon you. 
You fight with a mask, but I mean to tear it ofl*. [Applause.] 
You call yourselves Democrats, [Roars of laughter, applause 
and hisses.] What did the Democrats fight for in 1776 ? I 
should be very much pleased if any one of you would tell me. 

A Voice. That freemen should vote, not niggers. 

Another. Liberty ! 

Mr. Clay. Liberty ! Have you given it to the unborn mil- 
lions of Texas ? [Laughter and applause.] 

A Voice. Yes. 

Mr. Clay. You say ' Yes.' And our friends may judge of 
the value to be put upon the balance of your arguments, by 
this very answer. [Shouts of laughter and applause.] 

The Voice. Let's go out, Joe. 

Why, the leading principle for which our fathers fought, was, 
no taxation without representation. [Loud and continued 
cheering.] That they should go together. [Cheers.] And yet here 
comes up a man from Texas owning 100 slaves ; he takes his 
seat in the House of Representatives, and thus has as much 
power as he who represents sixty-one of the best freemen of 
New York, John Jacob Astor, or any one else included. Is 
that equal representation ? 

A Voice. Yes. [Laughter.] 

Another. No. [Laughter.] 

Mr. Clay. You send your members to Washington — ■ 
10,000 votes (about), to one representative ; and a man comes 
from Texas, who-has only 1250 votes ; for there are only about 
4500 there in all. [Laughter.] And yet you call it equal repre- 
sentation. [Applause.] Suppose a stranger was to come among 
you ; he'd say it w^as a queer state of things. Your 10,000,000 
of the northern freemen allow 5,000,000 of slaveholders to get 
the upper hand of you. And by whose money, and by whose 
blood is the country sustained 1 By that of northern men ; and 
there would be no money, if Northern men did not furnish it. 



SPEECH IN NEW YORK. 197 

[Hisses.] The money to buy Louisiana came from Northern 
men ; and in Florida the blood of Northern men was shed in 
order that Northern men might make themselves and their 
children slaves. [Applause and hisses.] 

Mr. Clay. You hiss again ! Is it not true ? If we desire 
to differ from former republics, and regret that they lived so 
short a time, let us ask, why was it that their life, so glorious 
and so brilliant, was so short? Because they had not a Con- 
stitution for which they had any reverence. They had the same 
despotism that we suffer under to-night — the despotism of niUB- 
bers. And if I had a choice to-night, so help me Heaven. I had 
rather live under the despotism of the Emperor of Russia, or the 
Sidtan of Turkey, than under the despotism of nimibers. For 
there, if you keep yourself humble and insignificant, you may slink 
away into peaceful obscurity ; but here, no matter how humble 
yourself or dwelling — on the loneliest creek or bayou, the tax- 
gatherer is sure to find you out ; for, as they say, there are two 
things from which no man can escape — Death and the tax- 
gatherer. [Laughter and applause.] The man who basely 
submits to one act of tyranny, will submit to all, and is a slave. 
And if I know anything of slavery, it is a misei'able depeii- 
dence on the will of another. Our fathers framed the Consti- 
tution that it should not be subjected to the despotism of num- 
bers, particularly against the acquisition of territory by num- 
bers. [Applause.] And yet what have we lately seen 7 

Mr. Clay then compared the conduct of the South on the 
Texas question, with that on the Oregon affair. He said that 
Oregon was ours by discovery, exploration, and beneficial and 
successful occupancy. He deprecated the last resort — the 
ultima ratio regwn. But if it was necessary to take a slave 
state by force, he would take this free state by force, and leave 
it to sensible men, on whom the guilt of the blood spilt should 
rest. Our title is perfect. England cannot, and dare not, go 
to war for it ; and if hot-headed men on both sides will keep 
still, we shall have Oregon without a war. 

Mr. Clay jocosely proposed to buy out England's partial 
right to Oregon with Texas and South Carolina money, since 
the North was so liberal as to buy Florida and Louisiana for 
the slaveholders. 

He contended that, as all history proved, we must all either 
be slaves or freemen. What would we do ? Declare we will 



198 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

all be free. How was this to be accomplished ? By standing 
only on the Constitution and laws. Give the South the pound 
of flesh, but no blood. If they violate a single right of the free, 
they violate the entire franchise of the North, and the peril of 
the strife be on their head. 

The course he desired, was not to vary the ninth part of a 
hair from the Constitution. If you wish to be generous, be so ; 
if you wish to be conciliatory, be so ; but stand close up to the 
Constitution. Wherever slavery can be constitutionally reached, 
there reach it [applause], and with the extension of territory, 
extend only freedom. [Much applause.] 

Mr. Clay then went on to speak of slavery in the District of 
Columbia ; and to show that ten miUion of free Northern men 
have something to do with slavery there, seeing that the 
national government has entire jurisdiction over tlie ten miles 
square, and that these ten million constitute a majority of the 
constituents of the government. [Applause.] 

There was another way which slavery could be constitution- 
ally reached. It could be banished from the seas, so far as they 
were under the jurisdiction of the United States government. 
The domestic traffic in slaves now carried on between the 
states could be driven from the ocean under that clause of the 
Constitution, which empowers Congress to regulate commerce. 

If the question were again asked. What had the North to do 
with slavery ? he would answer, that they could destroy the 
monopoly of office and patronage so long enjoyed by the slave 
power, and place the administration of the government in the 
hands of those who would wield it in conformity to the great 
principles of liberty. On this point he spoke with much 
emphasis, but we cannot follow him farther. 

Tiiere was another point of still greater delicacy as pertaining 
to the peculiar duties of the North. He alluded to the restric- 
tion which the free states might put upon the right of suffrage. 
On this subject, he called upon the audience and the reporters 
for the press to mark his language when he said that on no 
subject was the South more sensitive than upon this. If the 
North would reach slavery effectually, let her be just to her own 
free black population, by giving them their political rights. If 
she would aid in freeing the South, she must herself be free 
from all taint of oppression. He would not enter upon the 
question of the natural equality of the black with the white 



SPEECH IN NEW YORK. 199 

race. When he considered the progress which the latter had 
made, from a state of rude barbarism to their present compara- 
tively high intellectual condition ; when he considered what 
England was in the time of Elizabeth, and what she is now, 
he would not undertake to say what might yet be done to 
elevate the blacks. It had been affirmed by those wiser in such 
matters than himself, that the arts and sciences were received 
by the Romans from ancient Egyptians, who were negroes; 
and he could not tell whether in the progress of events, the 
blacks might not be elevated to the highest point of civilization 
and refinement. On that point, he would neither affirm nor 
deny anything, but leave it to be settled by the developments of 
time, and the action of Divine Providence. That the blacks, 
in their present condition, were vastly behind the whites, he 
admitted, and he did not stand there to plead for amalgamation, 
or for entire social equality. Here was an important distinction 
which he begged his audience to note— that between equahty 
of social condition and equality of political rights. Suppose he 
were to meet in the street a live Yankee, a sucker from Indiana, 
a corn-cracker from Kentucky, or even a poor miserable drunken 
vagabond. He might not prefer such men for associates, but 
would he therefore knock theni down and rob them 1 Would 
he deprive them of all political rights, because he did not choose 
them for his companions ? No — if he did not want to associate 
with them, he would let them pass by in peace; but he would 
say to them, "You shall be permitted to have a voice in making 
and administering the laws by which you are to be governed.*' 
[Great applause.] He had enjoyed the privilege of taking 
Webster, and Adams, and Everett by the hand", and he did not 
feel that those men were degraded because they came from a 
state where the colored man was allowed the right of suffrage. 
O no ! And if, unfortunately, the Union were to be severed 
into fragments by the struggle between slavery and freedom, to 
what quarter could he turn for safety, and where Avould the 
principles of liberty be longest preserved, but in the land of 
Bunker Hill and Lexington, where justice is not outraged by a 
denial to the blacks of their political rights. 

He was willing to let by-gones be by-gones, and wherever he 
saw any man laboring according to his best light in the cause 
of freedom, whether he were a Garrisonian, a liberty man, a 
whio-, or a so-called democrat, he could not find it in his heart 



200 THE WRlTIx\GS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

• 
to throw cold water upon his plans. No, let him go on his own 
way, and God prosper the right. But as he had besought the 
liberty party, in the late presidential campaign, not to cast their 
votes in such a way as to promote the election of Polk, and 
ensure the annexation of Texas, so he would now beseech them 
not to throw their votes and influence in such a way as to defeat 
the effort to extend to the blacks of New York the right of 
suffrage. The two great parties were taking their ground on 
this question, tbe one in favor, and the other against this 
measure of justice ; let the liberty men not sacrifice this object 
by a too rigid adherence to their abstract theories. He had told 
them beforehand what would be the effect of the election of Polk 
upon the annexation of Texas, but they were sceptical, and 
disregarded his admonitions. They had seen all his predictions 
on that subject verified, and he would now warn them not to 
sacrifice, in the same manner, this great question of suffrage. 

Mr. Clay concluded his speech as follows : 

As for myself, though the cause has apparently gone against 
me, and the liberty of speech and of the press, and the right of 
habeas corpus have been struck down in my person, I am 
resolved not to give up! I may indeed be an enthusisist. 
Webster, Clay, Calhoun may better comprehend the destiny of 
this republic than I ; but I cannot but give utterance to the 
conceptions of my own mind. 

When I look upon the special developments of European 
civilization— when I contemplate the growing freedom of the 
cities, and the middle class which had sprung up between the 
pretenders to Divine rule on the one hand, and the abject serf 
on the other — when I consider the Reformation and the inven- 
tion of the press — and see on the southern shore of the conti- 
nent, an humble individual, amidst untold difficulties and 
repeated defeats, pursuing the mysterious suggestions which 
the mighty deep poured unceasingly upon his troubled spirit, 
till at last with great and irrepressible energy of soul, he 
discovered that there lay in the far Western Ocean a continent 
open for the infusion of those elementary principles of liberty 
which were dwarfed in European soil, I have conceived that 
the hand of destiny was there ! 

When I saw the immigration of the Pilgrims from the 
chalky shores of England — in the night fleeing from their 
native home — so dramatically and ably pictured by Mr. Weh- 



SPEECH IN NEW YORK. 201 

ster in his celebrated oration — when father, mother, brother, 
sister, lover, were all lost, by those melancholy wanderers, 
"stifling," in the language of one who is immortal in the 
conception, " the mighty hunger of the heart," and landing 
amidst cold, and poverty, and death, upon the rude Rock of 
Plymouth — I have ventured to think that the will of Deity was 
there ! 

When I have remembered the revolution of '76 — the seven 
years' war — three millions of men standing in arms against the 
most powerful nation of history, and vindicating their Inde- 
pendence — I have thought that their sufferings and death were 
not in vain ! When I have gone and seen the forsaken 
hearth-stone — looked in upon the battle-field, upon the dying 
and the dead — heard the agonizing cry, " Water, for the sake 
of God! water" — seen the dissolution of this being — pale lips 
pressing in death the yet loved images of wife, sister, and lover 
— I will not deem all these in vain ! I cannot regard this great 
continent, reaching from the Atlantic to the far Pacific, and 
from the St. John's to the Rio del Norte, a slave empire, a 
barbarian people of third rate civilization. 

Like the Roman who looked back upon the glory of his 
ancestors, in great woe exclaiming, 

" Great Scipio's ghost complains that we are slow, 
And rumpey's shade walks unavenged among us" — 

the great dead hover around me. Lawrence, " Don't give up 
the ship"— Henry, " Give me liberty or give me death" — Adams. 
"Survive or perish, I am for the Declaration" — Allen, "In the 
name of the Living God, I come !" 

Come, then, thou Eternal ! who dwellest not in temples 
made with hands, but who, in the city's crowd, or by the far 
forest stream, revealest Thyself to the earnest seeker after the 
true and tin; right; inspire my heart — give me undying courage 
to {uusuc the promptings of my spirit ; and whether I shall be 
called, in the shade of life, to look upon sweet, and kind, and 
lovely faces as now — or, shut in by sorrow and nighi, horrid 
visages shall gloom upon me in my dying hour — Oh ! my 
country ! mayest thou yet be free ! 

Mr. Clay having concluded his remarks amid deafening 
and prolonged acclamations, three resolutions, handed up to the 
desk, were read by II. Greeley, and submitted to the meeting. 



202 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

[They were instantly spirited away by some of our contoTipo- 
raries, but their purport was as follows] : 

Resolved, That we regard the destruction of the True 
American Press by a mob, at Lexington, Ky., as a direct 
attack on the Rights of Free Speech and the Rights of Man, 
and that the authors of that outrage are deserving of the 
severest reprehension. 

Resolved, That we tender to Cassius M. Clay our fervent 
gratitude for his struggles and sacrifices in the great cause of 
Universal Freedom, and we trust his devotion will yet be 
crowned with the amplest and most gratifying triumph. 

Resolved, That we are deeply indebted to Mr. Clay for his 
Address this evening, in favor of the great principles of Justice 
and Liberty, and we assure him that our ardent sympathy will 
attend him in all his future efforts in behalf of Universal 
Emancipation. 

Which resolutions were unanimously adopted, with six 
unanimous cheers for Cassius M. Clay and the Freedom of 
the Press. 

The meeting then [lialf-past nine o'clock] adjourned. 



slavery: the EVIL-THE REMEDY 



To THE Editor of the Tribune : 

" And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure, when 
we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds 
of the people that these liberties are the gift of God ? * * * 
Indeed, I tremble for my country, when I reflect that God is 
just : that his justice cannot sleep for ever : that, considering 
numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution of the 
wlieel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible 
events : that it may become probable by supernatural inter- 
ference ! The Almighty has no attrilMite which can take sides 
with us in such a contest."— Jeffosoii's Azotes on Virginia. 

Thomas Jefferson never thought of the absurdity of debating 
the question, whether slavery be an evil, nor was he indulgent 
to the delusive idea that it would be perpetual. He reduced the 
subject to its certain elements : the master must liberate the 
slave, or the slave will exterminate the master. This conclusion 
is not weakened by the history of the past. The same color in 
the ancient republics enabled the state to use emancipation as 
a safety valve ; yet notwithstanding the thorough amalgamation 
of the freed man with the free born, servile wars nearly extin- 
guished by violence the noblest nations of antiquity : while no 
man dare say that slavery was not the secret cause of their 
ultimate ruin. But if "His justice" should "sleep for ever," 
and the tragedy so awfully predicted should never occur, still 
must we regard slavery as the greatest evil that ever cursed a 
nation. 

Slavery is an evil to the slave, by depriving nearly three mil- 
lions of men of the best gift of God to man — liberty. I stop 
here ; this is enough of itself to give us a full anticipation of 
the long catalogue of human woe, and physical and intellectual 
and moral abasement, which follows in the wake of slavery. 



204 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

Slavery is an evil to the master. It is utterly subversive of 
the Christian religion. It violates the great law vipon which 
that religion is based, and on account of which it vaunts its 
pre-eminence. 

It corrupts our offspring by necessary association with an 
abandoned and degraded race, ingrafting in the young mind 
and heart all the vices and none of the virtues. 

It is the source of indolence, and destructive of all industry, 
which in times past among the wise has ever been regarded as 
the first friend of religion, morality, and happiness. The poor 
despise labor, because slavery makes it degrading. The mass 
of slaveholders are idlers. 

It is the mother of ignorance. The system of common schools 
has not succeeded in a single slave state. Slavery and education 
are natural enemies. In the free states one in fifty-three, over 
twenty-one years, is unable to read and write ; in the slave 
states one in thirteen and three tenths is unable to write and 
read ! 

It is opposed to literature, even in the educated classes. Noble 
aspirations and true glory depend upon virtue and good to man. 
The conscious injustice of slavery hangs as a mill-stone about 
the necks of the sons of genius, and will not let them up ! 

It is destructive of all mechanical excellence. The free states 
build ships and steam cars for the nations of the world ; the 
slave states import tlie handles for their axes — these primitive 
tools of the architect. The educated population will not work 
at all ; the uneducated must work without science, and of course 
without skill. If there be a given amount of mechanical genius 
among a people, it is of necessity developed in proportion as a 
whole or part of the population are educated. In the slave states 
the small portion educated is inert. 

It is antagonistic to the fine arts. Creations of beauty and 
sublimity are the embodiments of the soul's imaginings : the 
fountain must surely be pure and placid whence these glorious 
and inuuortal and lovely images are reflected. Liberty has ever 
been the mother of the arts. 

It retards population and wealth. Compare New York and 
Virginia, Tennessee and Ohio— slates of equal natural advan- 
tages, and equal ages. The wealth of the free states is in a 
nmch greater ratio even superior to that of the slave states, than 
the population of the free is greater than that of the slave states. 



SLAVERY: THE EVIL— THE REMEDY. 205 

The manufactures of the slave as compared to those of the free 
states, are as one to four nearly, as is shown by statistics. I 
consider the accumulation of wealth in a less ratio. 

It impoverishes the soil and defaces the loveliest features of 
nature. Washington advises a friend to remove from Pennsyl- 
vania to Virginia, saying, that cheap lands in Virginia were as 
good as the dear lands in Pennsylvania, and, anticipating the 
abolition of slavery, would be more productive. His anticipa- 
tions have perished ; slavery still exists ; the wild brier and the 
red fox are now there the field-growth and the inhabitants ! 

It induces national poverty. Slaves consume more and pro- 
duce less than freemen. Hence'illusive wealth, prodigality, and 
bankruptcy, without the capability of bearing adversity, or re- 
covering from its influence : then comes despair, dishonor, and 
crime. 

It is an evil to the free laborer, by forcing him by tlie laws of 
competition, supply, and demand, to work for the wages of the 
slave— food and shelter. The poor, in the slave states, are the 
most destitute native population in the United States. 

It sustains the public i^entiment in favor of the deadly affray 
and the duel — those relics of a barbarous age. 

It is the mother and the nurse of Lynch Imv, which I regard as 
the most horrid of all crimes, not even excepting parricide, which 
ancient legislators thought too impossible to be ever supposed in 
the legal code. If all the blood thus shed in the South could 
be gathered together, the horrid image which Emmett drew of 
the cruelty of his judges would grow pale in view of this greater 
terror. 

Where all these evils exist, how can liberty, constitutional 
Hberty, live ? No indeed, it cannot and has not existed in con- 
junction with slavery. We are but nominal freemen, for though 
born to all the privileges known to the Constitution and the laws, 
written and prescriptive, we have seen struck cfown with the 
leaden hand of slavery, the most glorious banner that freedom 
ever bore in the face of men ; " Trial by Jiuy, Liberty of Speech 
and of the Press." The North may be lial)le to censure in con- 
gress for freedom of speech ; may lose the privileges of the post 
office, and the right of petition, and perhaps yet be free ; but 
we of the land of slavery, are ourselves slaves ! Alas for the 
hypocritical cry of liberty and equality, which demagogues 
sound for ever in our ears ! The Declaration of Independence 



206 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

comes back from all nations, not in notes of triumph and self- 
elation, but thundering in our ears the everlasting lie — making 
us infidels in the great world of freedom — raising up to our- 
selves idols of wood and stone, inscribed with the name of Deity, 
where the one invisible and true God can never dwell. The 
blood of the heroes of 1776 has been shed in vain. The just 
expectations of Hamilton and Franklin, and Sherman, and 
Morris, and Adams, of the North, are betrayed by the continu- 
ance of slavery. The fond anticipations of Washington, and 
Jefferson, and Madison, and Mason, of the South, have not been 
realized. The great experiment of republican government has 
not been fairly tested. If the Union should not be perpetual, 
nor the American name be synonymous with that of liberty in 
all coming time, slavery is at once the cause, the crime, and the 
avenger ! 

Are we indeed of that vaunted Saxon blood which no dangers 
can appal, no obstacles obstruct, and shall we sit with shivering 
limbs and dewy feet by the running stream, with inane features 
and>stolid gaze, expecting this flood of evils to flow past, leav- 
ing the channel dry ? We, who can conquer all things else, 
shall we be here only subdued, ingloriously whispering with 
white lips, there is no remedy ? Are the fowls free in the wide 
heavens, the fishes secure in the depths of the ocean, the beasts 
untrammeled in the forest wild, and shall man only, man formed 
in the image of Deity, the heir of immortality, be doomed to 
hopeless servitude 1 Yes, there is a remedy. 

There is one of four consequences to which slavery inevitably 
leads : A continuance of the present relative position of the 
master and the slave, both as to numbers, intelligence and phy- 
sical power ; or an extermination of the blacks ; or an exter- 
mination of the whites; or emancipation and removal, or 
emancipation, and a community of interests between the races. 

The present relative position between the blacks and whites 
(even if undisturbed by external influences, which we cannot 
hope), cannot long continue. Statistics of numbers show that 
in the whole slave states the black increase on the white popu- 
lation. The dullest eye can also see that the African, by asso- 
ciation with the white race, has improved in intellect, and by 
being transferred to a temperate climate, and forced to labor, 
and to throw off the indolence of his native land, he is increasing 
in physical power ; while the whites, by the same reversed laws, 



SLAVERY : THE EVIL— THE REMEDY. 207 

is retrograding in the same respect. Slavery tlien cannot re- 
main for ever as it is. Tliat tlie black race will be extermi- 
nated seems hardly probable from the above reflections, and be- 
cause the great mass of human passions will be in favor of the 
increase of the slaves, ad interini. Pride, love of power, blind 
avarice, and many other passions are for it, against it only fear 
in the opposite scale. We are forced, therefore, to the conclu- 
sion that the slave population must increase, till there is no re- 
treat but in the extermination of the whites. Athens, Sparta, 
and Rome nearly, Hayti in modern times, did fall by servile 
wars. I have shown elsewhere that the slavery of the blacks 
in the modern, is more dangerous than the slavery of the 
whites in the ancient system; then the intelligent slave was 
incorporated into the liigh castes of quondam masters, an eternal 
safety-valve, which yet did not save from explosions eminently 
disastrous. 

The negative of the second proposition, then, establishes the 
third, unless we avail ourselves of the last — emancipation. If 
my reasoning and facts be correct, there is not a sane mind in 
all the South who would not agree with me, that if we can be 
saved from the first named evils, by all means emancipate. 
Emancipation is entirely safe. Sparta and Athens turned the 
slaves by thousands into freedom with safety, who fought 
bravely for their common country. 

During the revolution many emancipated slaves did good ser- 
vice in the cause of liberty. We learn from Mr. Gurney, and 
other sources to be relied upon, that British West India emanci- 
pation has been entirely successful, and productive of none 
of those evils which were so pertinaciously foretold by in- 
terested pro-slavery men. The British have regiments of black 
men, who make fine soldiers — protectors, not enemies of the em- 
pire. But above all, I rely not upon sound a priori reasoning only, 
but rather upon actual experience. There are in the United 
States, by the last census, 386,265 free blacks ; 170,758 of 
whom are in the free, the remainder in the slave states. There 
are also 2,485,145 slaves — so that, in fact, about one-sixth of the 
whole black race in America are already free ! No danger or evil 
consecpience has ensued from the residence of these 386,265 
freedmen among us. Who then will be so absurd as to contend 
that the liberation of the other five-sixths will endanger the 
safety or happiness of the whites? I repeat, then, that eman 
cipation is entire! n safe. 



208 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

Emancipation imist either be by the vohintary consent of 
the masters, or by force of law. I regard vokmtary emancipa- 
tion as the most probable, the most desirable, and the most practi- 
cable. For the slaveholding landholder would not be less rich in 
consequence ; the enhancement of the value of land would com- 
pensate for the loss of slaves. A comparison of tlie price of 
lands of equal quality in the free and slave states will prove 
this conclusively. If, however, by force of law— the law having 
once sanctioned slaves as property, the great principle which is 
recognised by all civilized governments, that private property 
cannot be taken for public use, without just compensation — 
dictates that slaves should not be liberated without the consent 
of the masters, or without paying an equivalent to the owners. 
Under the sanction of law, one man invests the proceeds of his 
labor in slaves, another in land : in the course of time it becomes 
necessary to the common weal to buy up the lands for redis- 
tribution or culture in common — how should the tax be laid! 
Of course upon lands, slaves, and personal property — in a word, 
upon the whole property of a whole people. If, on the other 
hand, it should nearly concern the safety and happiness of so- 
ciety, both the slaveholder and the non-slaveholder, that slaves 
bhould be taken and emancipated, then, by the same legitimate 
course of reasoning, the whole property of the State should be 
taxed for the purpose. If emancipation shall take place by 
force of law, shall it be by the laws of the states, or by the law 
of congress? Let congress abolish slavery wherever she has 
jurisdiction — in the military places, in the territories, and on the 
high seas, and in the District of Columbia, if the contracts of 
cession with Virginia and Maryland allow. I lay down the 
broad rule that congress should do no more for the perpetuation 
of slavery, than she is specially bound to do. The debates in 
the federal convention prove that the free states did not intend 
to assume the responsibihties of slavery. In the language of 
Roger Sherman, and others, they could not acknowledge the 
right of "property in men." There is then no moral obligation 
in the Union to sustain the rights of the South in slaves, except 
only they are morally bound to regard the contract with the 
South, and in the construction of that compact, the presump- 
tion in all cases of doubt is in favor of Liberty. On the con- 
trary, the United States are morally bound by all means con- 
sistent with the Constitution to extinguish slavery. The word 
slave is not used in the Constitution, because the promises of 



SLAVERY: THE EVIL— THE REMEDY. 209 

all the southern members of the convention led to final emanci- 
pation, and a noble shame on all hands induced the expulsion 
of the word from the charter of human liberty. I cannot agree 
that there is any law superior to that of the federal Constitu- 
tion. It is the part of Christians to model human laws after 
the divine code, but the law in the present state of light from on 
High, must be paramount to the Bible itself. If any other prac- 
tice should prevail, the confusion of religious interpretations of 
the Divine will would be endless and insufferable. In a coun- 
try where Jews, Christians, and Infidels, and Deists, and Catho- 
lics, and Protestants, and Fourierists, and Mormonites, and 
Millerites, and Shakers, all are concentrated into one nation, it 
would be subversive of all governmental action, that each sect 
should set up a Divine code as each "understands it," superior 
to the Constitution itself. If a case ever arises where conscience 
dictates a different doctrine — that the penalty of the law is 
rather to be borne than its prescriptions obeyed — then also there 
arises at the same time a case where the sufferer must look to 
God only for approbation and sustainment — he has passed from 
all a|)peal to mankind. 

I dissent, then, from the ultra anti-slavery and the ultra pro- 
slavery men. I cannot join the North in the violation of the 
Constitution. I cannot stand by the South in asking the moral 
sanction of the North ; nor do I regard it as a breach of the con- 
stitutional compact that she should seek a higher grade of 
civiHzation by using all legal means for the entire expulsion of 
slavery in the United States. Congress, having no power over 
slavery in the states, the states, each one for itself, where its 
Constitution does not forbid, certainly has, and should exercise 
the power of purchase and emancipation. In Kentucky the 
Constitution forbids the legislature to act upon the suljject.* 
We must therefore look to a convention, or that which I most 
hope, to voluntary emancipation. Enlightened self-interest, 
humanity and religion, are moving on with slow, yet irresistible 
force to that final result. Let the whole North in mass, in 
conjunction with the patriotic of the South, withdraw the moral 
sanction and legal power of the Union from the sustainment of 
slavery, then our existence as a people with undivided interests 
may yet be consummated. May the Ruler of all nations, the 

* Without payment — which is impossible in practice. 

14 



210 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

common Father of all men, who is no respecter of persons, 
and whose laws are not violated with impunity by individuals 
nor by states, move us to be just, happy, and free. May that 
spirit which has eternally consecrated in the admiration of men 
Salamis and Maratlion, Bunker's Hill and Yorktown, inspire 
our hearts, till the glorious principles of '76 shall be fully 
vindicated, and throughout the land shall be established 
" Liberty and Union, one and inseparable, now and for ever." 

Cassius M. Clay. 
Lexington, Kij., Nov. 1843. 



PROSPECTUS 

FOR 

THE TRUE AMERICAN 



A NUMBER of native Kentuckians, slaveholders and others, 
propose to publish in the City of Lexington, a paper devot- 
ed to gradual and constitutional emancipation, so as at some 
definite time to place our state upon the firm, safe, and just 
basis of liberty. The time has come when a large and respect- 
able party, if not a majority of the people, are prepared to take 
this subject up, and act so as to secure the end proposed, with- 
out injustice to any, but with eminent benefit to all. A press 
is only necessary to give concentrated eflibrt and final success, 
by free conference of opinion, and untrammeled discussion. 

We propose to act as a !>^tate Partij^ not to unite with any 
party, state or national ; expecting aid and encouragement from 
the lovers of liberty of all parties, we shall treat them with 
studied coiutesy and forbearance, so far as it may be consistent 
with the integrity of the principles which govern us. 

It is not proposed that our members should cut loose from 
their old party associations. The press under our control will 
appeal te7nj)erately but firmly to the interests and the reason, 
not to the passions, of our people ; we shall take care rigidly to 
respect the legal rights of others, because we intend to maintain 
our ov:n. We shall attempt to sustain in good faith the '■'free- 
dom of the press." Whilst our organ will conscientiously vin- 
dicate and uphold the Christian morality in ethics, and consti- 
tutional republicanism in politics, its colunms shall be open to 
all sects in all things concerning human action ; believing, with 
Jeft'erson that there is no error so dangerous but that it may be 
left safely to the combat of reason ; we utterly repudiate that 
false philosophy and time-serving expediency which caters to 
the tyranny of opinion, by excluding from the press whatever 
does not suit the fastidious tastes of " patrons." Our readers 
tfhall not be our masters ; if they love not truth they may go 



212 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

elsewhere. The times call for language plain, bold, and true ; 
our cause is good ; our press shall be independent or cease to 
exist ; designed to accomplish great purposes, to vindicate prin- 
ciples of interest to all mankind, it shall subserve the elevation 
of no man, disdain personal denunciation, and share the glory 
of its triumphs among all its supporters. A native born Ken- 
tuckian has engaged to edit " The True American,^'' and as 
his opinions and feelings are expressed in the above outlme of 
party action, he will be untrammeled in his independence, so 
long as he is faithful to the principles of his adoption. 

"The True American" will be published weekly, in the city 
of Lexington, Kentucky ; and it is proposed to make it em- 
brace all the matter common in newspapers ; especially will it 
regard the high place which labor holds in the economy of na- 
ture, and insist upon its enjoyment of a fair distribution of the 
products of capital. The size and appearance of the paper 
shall be as studiedly becoming and tasteful as its means will 
allow. 



THE TRUE AMERICAN 



GOD AND LIBERTY!' 



LEXINGTON, TUESDAY, JUNE 3 



EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT. 

Some of the ablest statesmen and scholars of this state, have 
agreed to assist in editing this paper, and as my pursuits will 
not always allow me to revise and comment upon their editorials, 
some diversity of opinion, upon the great questions at issue, will 
necessarily occur. 

Cassius M. Clay. 



•Since the proposition to publish this paper was made, events 
have transpired Avhich sink our original design, important as we 
deemed it, into utter insignificance, compared with the great 
principles which are now at issue. 

The question is now no longer, whether six hundred thou- 
sand Kentuckians sjiall postpone their true prosperity to the 
real, or supposed interests of some thirty-one thousand slave- 
holders : but whether they are prepared to yield up, absolutely, 
all their liberties, and submit themselves willing slaves to a des- 
potic and irresponsible minority. The slave party have under- 
taken to say, not — that they claim the Constitution as the title- 
deed to their slaves, which no man can cancel until the very 
foundations of the government be forcibly overthrown, or peace- 
ably changed by lef;-al means, through the omnipotent will of 
the majority — but that they themselves, trampling under foot 
all the vital principles of that Constitution, will set at defiance 



214 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

its special injunctions, by an anarchical and revolutionary power 
— violating natural right, Divine revelation, and the conscience 
of the civilized world. 

The representatives of this faction, " Junius,^'' in the Observer 
and Reporter, and " A Whig," and Robert Wic/diffe, in the 
Kentucky Gazette, whose letters we publish to-day, have more 
or less taken the ground, that the subject of slavery shall not be 
discussed, and that violence shall suppress our press. 

Here, upon this issue, then, we take our stand, and are ready 
to " try conclusions " with these gentlemen, before a gallant 
people, in the face of the world. We most frankly admit, that 
we are not so Quixotic as to seek to fight with a mob ; we know 
that we can be overpowered by numbers ; yet, from the defence 
of our known rights, we are not to be deterred by vague threats 
or real dangers, coming from any man or set of men. As we 
should deem ourselves a base citizen of a commonweaUh, if we 
were not prepared at all times, if necessary, to fall in the defence 
of our country against a foreign foe : so, we shall ever fearlessly 
meet the treasonable and revolutionary enemies of constitutional 
liberty at home. Though under the ban of popular proscription 
— baited by the wide-spread tongue of slander, and the relentless 
denunciations of men in power — set on by bands of hireling 
assassins — still, undismayed, planting ourselves upon the firm 
basis of our birthright, constitutional liberty, and the world-wide 
principles of truth and justice, we hurl back indignant defiance 
against these cowardly outlaws. We can die, but cannot be 
enslaved. 

The Constitution of the United Slates, Article IX., A, says : 
" Congress shall make no law * * * abridging the freedom 
of speech, or of the press." Article X., Section VII., of the Ken- 
tucky Constitution, declares, that " The free communion of 
thoughts and opinions is one of the invaluable rights of man, 
and every citizen may freely speak, write, or print on any sub- 
ject, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty." Now every 
tyro in the lowest attorney's office knows that this responsibility 
is, for libel, or treasonable matter, (if, after the definition of treason 
in the Constitution of the United States, anything less than 
" levying war," &c. could be considered punishalfle) and to a 
" jury of our peers," as James Kent has nowhere denied, and 
not to a " mob," as Junius w^ould have it. For, if this man, 
grossly ignorant as he is of the great principles of common law 



LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 215 

and natural right, had looked at the very next Section VIII., of 
the Kentucky Constitution, he miglit have saved himself from 
the ridicule and contempt, if not from the indignation of men. 
If, then, Junius shall, single-handed, fall upon us when alone, 
and take our life, and suppress our publications, he will be guilty 
of murder. If he shall come with numbers to back him, he will 
most probably find us too, sustained by some Kentuckians who 
yet dare to be free. The contest, in that event, may aspire to 
the dignity of a civil war, in which we shall be found fighting 
in the cause of the Constitution and Liberty, and they in the 
cause of slavery — in rebellion against both. In such a contest, 
I shall not fear the result : 

" That point 
In misery, which makes the oppressed mau 
Regardless of his own life; makes him, too, 
Lord of his oppressor's."' 

Still we are not men of blood ; and to show the pacific that 
we are economical in that precious fluid, if nothing but a fight 
will satisfy this rampant knis^ht of the scalpel, we propose that 
he supersede this projected civil war by the less heroic, but more 
liarmless mode of the duel. If he slay us, the press shall stop; 
if we slay him, then never shall doctor's lancet draw blood more. 
Here, I must confess, I make but little show of courage, for I 
fall in with the opinion which generally prevails among my own 
gallant countrymen, that moh-leaders are inevitable cowards. 
Genuine bravery and magnanimity ever go together ; and a man 
of large chivalric soul scorns to take odds against a single foe. 
" Ne siitor ullra crepidam.'' Let Junius stick to his bolus ; 
there is more death in his mortar than in his sword ; none but 
unresisting victims mark his prowess. A man outlawed from 
the social circle by his infamy, may well aspire to become a cut- 
throat, if numbers should ensure him his wonted impunity in 
the perpetration of crime. 

I should rather judge 'A TT7m'«-," from his hesitating tone, to 
be a tame a'kid harmless villain, and we can hardly waste indig- 
nation enough to repeat, 

" Thou cream-faced loon, 
Where gottest thou that gooso look ? " 

Of all men living, Robert WicJdiffe should be the last to speak 
of popular vengeance. He stands a living, but ungrateful monu- 



216 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

ment of the forbearing mercy of the people. The victims of 
incendiary pubhcations have not yet imbrued their hands in the 
blood of this man, who for years has not scrupled to aggrandize 
his political power by the most dangerous insinuations against 
the lives and property of the community. The armies of men, 
women, and children, whom he has robbed by the dishonest ji^o*- 
glery of the law — men, who have seen the beds stripped from 
the sick and helpless women — bread from the mouths of crying 
infancy — the plough-share run sacrilegiously over the buried 
ashes of their fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and children, by 
this inexorable fiend of the laiu — have not come up in mass, in 
their great and remediless woe, and thrown his torn limbs to the 
dogs : and yet he stands, at the age of seventy, advocating vio- 
lence. Let this old man beware ! Does he want another family 
picture spread out upon those walls, built up by the tears and 
blood of the poor and oppressed, whose cries for redress and 
vengeance, he confesses, shake him in his guilty home? 

Here, midst the settled gloom which rests upon a house for 
ever dishonored, may be seen Breckenridge, returning after 
a long exile of patient wrong and unresisting persecution, and 
with one fell blow, crushing into the lowest depths of infamy, 
the man whom the sincerest follower of the long-suffering Martyr 
of Judea, could no longer look upon, and live unavenged. 

Here is Henry Clay, of Ashland, his friend in the days of 
his deepest woe, who saved the only one of his race worthy of 
such a champion from a felon's death — the blood flows from a 
thousand wounds inflicted by the tooth of cruel and remorseless 
slander — foremost among the bloodhounds who thrust their 
insatiate muzzles into his very life's blood, is Robert Wicklifle. 

Here is a great and gallant and confiding party, who have 
stood by him in good and evil report, through a long life, con- 
ferring upon him its repeated, though undeserved honors : at 
last, in 1844, in the day of its greatest trial, he basely deserts, 
and goes off, he and his, to the enemy ; and yet he, with a 
face of more than metal, dares insult a virtuous community by 
talking of double-dealing in politicians ! 

Here is a young and lovely girl, raped by a ruffian negro. 
When her imploring and streaming eyes were upturned to him, 
as one of the propounders of the law, asking vengeance for the 
violated purity of a virgin soul, he dared to strike a yet more 
deadly blow, by insinuating that this humble daughter of the 



LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 217 

people was a common prostitute. How can he talk of a mob, 
at this late day, without trembling at the remembrance of the 
popular indignation, wliich had then well nigh executed on him 
the vengeance which his crimes so richly deserve ? 

When a citizen of Fayette was poisoned by that degraded 
population which he would make perpetual among us, who 
covertly and insidiously procured her pardon of the Executive 
of the state ? And yet he ventures to impute to others the en- 
couragement of rape and poison ! Old man, remember poor 
Benning ; remember Trotter, the avenger ; remember Russell's 
cave ; and, if you still thirst for bloodshed and violence, the 
same blade that repelled the assaults of assassin sons, once more 
in self-defence, is ready to drink of the blood of the hireling 
horde of sycophants and outlaws of the assassin-sire of as- 
sassins. 

We pass from these men, whose frontless baseness has turn- 
ed us from our purpose of avoiding, if possible, all personal con- 
troversies, to the great mass of slaveholders, whom they, I 
know, do not fairly represent. I beg them to remember, that 
the Constitution is the sole basis of slave tenure, as well as of 
landed estate ; they who have every thing to lose, and nothing 
to gain by revolution, in my humble judgment, should be the 
last to avow the doctrine, " Sanve qui yeut^'' and cut loose from 
all Constitutional moorings. We are not anarchists or agra- 
rians ; we claim to be conservatives of the highest order ; and 
for this reason, and no other reason, than because we are such, 
we intend, if our humble life is spared, to look into the very bot- 
tom of this thing of slavery, and see whether it be a safe foun- 
dation of prosperity to us and our children, or not. We come 
not to bring war, but peace ; to save, not to destroy. We have 
no interests separate from those of the great mass of oiu" fellow 
citizens. We intend to share their dangers, or rejoice in their 
rescue ; but in good and evil report, we are enforced to abide 
the same destiny. We feel deeply the responsibihty of our post; 
it strips us of all personal ambition and private ends; we ask, 
therefore, the just and patient forbearance of our countrymen. 
Far be it from us to wound unnecessarily, their sensibihties, or 
to run wantonly counter to their rooted prejudices ; but we are 
constrained to speak boldly and honestly, looking neither to the 
right nor to the left, in our search after truth; advocating our 
cause as if, not Kentucky only, but all mankind were our judge, 
and posterity the jury of our award. 



218 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

If we fail in our purposes, our friends shall not blush for us, 
nor our enemies lightly triumph. When our mission on earth 
shall have ended, it shall be said of us, if we attained not the 
high mark of our fondly cherished aspirations, we dared much, 
in our humble way, for the vindication of the liberties of men ; 
if we, by the stern and inexorable decree of fate, fell short of the 
establishment of the right, we never, knowingly, defended the 
wi-ong. 



Lynch Law. 

The following extract from J. H. Green's account of a visit to 
the New York Auburn State Prison, we commend to " Junius " 
and his comrades : 

" I looked at the murderer and could scarcely believe my own 
eyes ; yet he stood before me a living marvel. I have pledged 
secresy as to his real name until after his execution. 1 inter- 
rogated him on his first steps in vice, and how he became so 
hardened. He told me to remember the treatment he had re- 
ceived fron the lynchers' lash at Vicksljurg. I did, but my eyes 
could scarce credit reality. I had known him in 1832, '3, '4, and 
the early part of '35, as a barkeeper in Vicksburg. 

" He was never a shrewd card-player, but at that time was 
considered an inoffensive youth. The coffee-house he kept was 
owned by North, who, with four others, were executed on the 
5th of iuly, 1835, by Lynch law. Wyatt, and three others, 
were taken on the morning of the 7th, stripped, and one 
thousand lashes given to the four, tarred and feathered, and put 
into a canoe and set adrift on the Mississippi river. It makes 
my blood curdle and my flesli quiver to think of the suffering 
condition of these unfortunate men, set adrift on the morning 
of the 7th of July, with the broiling sun upon their mangled 
bodies. Two died in about two hours after they were set afloat. 
Wyatt and another remained with their hands and feet bound 
forty hours, suffering more than tongue can tell, or pen de- 
scribe, when they were picked up by some slave negroes, who 
started with the two survivors to their quarters. His companion 
died before they arrived. Wyatt survives to tell the horrors of 
the lynchers' lash. He told me seven murders had been occa- 
sioned by their unmerciful treatment of him, and one innocent 
man hung. I know his statements to be true, for I had known 
him before 1835, and his truth in other particulars cannot be 



LYNCH LAW. 219 

doubted. He murdered his seventh man, for which crime he 
will be executed. I have another communication for your 
paper, concerning the nmrderer, and his prospects in the world 
to come. Yours, truly, J. H. Green.*' 

" Auburn, April 10, 1845." 

The lynching' of the gamblers in Vicksburg has ever been 
regarded by reflecting men, as murder. It is vain for the per- 
petrators of that notorious crime, to tell us that these gamblers 
were outlaws and cut throats ; there were also there judges, 
jurors, police officers, and a populous country. These men, 
however abandoned, had thrown themselves upon the majesty 
of the law for defence, and by that law they should have fallen, 
or have stood for ever intact. If a single citizen had stolen in 
the night and stabbed the gamblers to the heart, when wrapt 
in slumber, the crime would have stood out in its real colors. 
A number of citizens, going in mass, in open day, in overpow- 
ering odds, only in degree reduced the crime in the ratio of the 
number and armament of the attacked. Crime is ever short- 
sighted ; in fact, that conduct which the wise of all ages have 
marked as destructive of man's best interests — thai is crime 
The ends of this mob have never been attained ; they thought 
to secure peace and security by violence, what was the result ? 
Some of the best blood iu Vicksburg was shed in that contest: 
the gamblers were ousted ; but the blood of the murdered men 
still cries aloud from the ground for vengeance. It is said that 
this fraternity have sworn eternal enmity against Vicksburg. 
It has been burnt again and again, by these armed men, who 
have sprung up as from the sown dragon's teeth : and no man 
can foretell the end of these woes that hang over the doomed 
city. This convict confesses sevoi Tniirders in consequence of 
this outrage — what else can men expect ? They who sow the 
wind shall reap the whirlwind ! 

Monstrous cruelty and wrong never deter from crime ; but on 
the contrary, by disturbing the elements of virtuous intent and 
religious faith, as well as the basis of wholesome public opinion, 
which, with weak minds is often the only rule of action, they 
quicken into life the worst passions and the foulest deeds. The 
theory of society is taken to be this : every man yields up to 
government his right of offence for any injury, and Jiis right 
of defence, in all cases where it is possible for the strong arm 



220 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

of the law to come to the rescue. And the great law of self- 
defence does not exist, except in extreme cases, when it is in- 
cumbent on the defendant to show that to have awaited the 
slow progress of the civil power would have been utter ruin, for 
Avhich society could have made no amends. Now I take it, that 
if these postulates be true, then in all cases whatever, Lynch 
law is a crime of the darkest dye in organized society, and in 
no case justifiable. Or we may state the case thus : If any 
offence is punished by Lynch law, before it can be justified, the 
lynchers must show that it is better that all society be dissolved, 
than that the offence should go unpunished. By this rule, the 
slayers of Utterback (I believe this is the name of the man 
lynched by the Kentuckians, near Cincinnati), were murderers. 
Because it is better that this murderer should have gone un- 
whipt of justice, than that all law should have been trampled 
imder foot; or that the tacit covenant which every man has 
made with all the members of society, to yield up the right of 
offence or vengeance, should have been perfidiously and sacrile- 
giously broken. And when the murderers of Utterback say to 
us, what ! should this inan, who has cut the throat of his fellow 
man, for the sake of gold, and left him for dead, go unwhipt of 
justice, because the law' had not anticipated just such a case? 
We say yes : and you yourselves have done in very fact what 
he in design merely attempted ; and yet you are still your- 
selves unpunished — ^the very thing you complain of in others. 
Give us back our savage life, the scalping knife, the poisoned 
arrow, the war club, the cave, the brushwood, the prairie grass, 
the sharpened sense of aggression, vengeance, and defence : or 
spread over us the sacred panoply of inexorable and eternal law. 
The great master of the human mind and heart surely never 
conceived that there could be a conservative principle in Lynch 
law : 

Shylock. What judgment shall I dread doing no wrong ? 
You have among you many a purchased slave, 
Which, like your asses, and your dogs, and mules, 
You use in abject and in slavish parts, 
Because you bought them : — Shall I say to you, 
Let them be free, and marry them to your wives T 
Why sweat they under burdens ? let their beds 
Be made as soft as yours, a. id let their palates 
Be seasoned with such viands ? You will answer. 
The slaves are ours. So do I answer you : 



PROGRESS. 221 



The pound of flesh, which I demand of him, 

Is dearly bought, is mine, and I will have it ; 

If you deny me, fie vpon your law! 

There is no force in the decrees of Veitice : 

I stand for judgment ; answer, shall I have it ? 

And again : 

Shylock. If you deny it, let the danger light 
Upon your charter and your city's freedom. 

Here this " damned inexorable dog," (to use the words of 
Gratiano) plotting the murder, in cold blood, of the worthiest 
man in Venice, shielded by the inviolate sanctity of the law, 
defies the omnipotent council of the haughty republic : 

Bassanio. And I beseech you 
Wrest once the law to your authority. 
To do a great right, do a little wrong ; 
And curb this cruel devil of his will. 

A "Junius" he, except he had a soul. But such was not the 
wisdom of the immortal poet. In the ever-memorable words of 
Portia, Lynch law finds its grave — no Junius, nor banded 
outlaws can ever resurrect it from its sleep of death : 

Portia. It must not be : there is no power in Venice 
Can alter a decree established. 
'Twill be recorded for a precedent : 
And many an error, by the same example, 
Will rush into the state. It cannot he. 



LEXINGTON, TUESDAY, JUNE 10. 

Progress. 

Revelation, as well as natural philosophy, teach us that crea- 
tion itself has been progressive; organism, both vegetable and 
animal, has slowly reached its present perfection ; liistory con- 
firms the combined evidence of the anterior theory, till specula- 
tion has subsided into fact. It is foreign to our purpose to moot 
the vexed question, whether man is the innnediate work of the 
hands of God, or whether his existence is the necessary result 



222 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

of original elements, combined by antecedent laws of omnipo- 
tent will. We imagine that there are few at the present time, 
who will contend that he w^as from the beginning, and that he 
is at the head of all intelligences, knotvn and unknoiun. Athe- 
ism has perished from the convictions of mankind. Passing 
on, however, to known truths, we lay down the broad proposi- 
tion, that from the earliest time man has been improving in his 
social condition, or advancing in those complicated develop- 
ments and relations which are understood by the term civiliza- 
tion. We dare say that our race is better guarded against 
natural evils than ever before ; better housed, better clothed, 
better fed, and better provided with medicines against disease 
and casualties. Particular nations have at times excelled in 
particular arts, but what was once peculiar to a single people is 
now world-wide in its diffusion. The Grecian temple now illus- 
trates many a "barbarian" hill; and provincial peasants, since 
the cultivation of cotton, and the preparation of chemicals, rival, 
in lovely raiment, the Tyrian purple of princes. The intellect 
has not fallen behind the physical part in its progress. Men no 
longer bow down to stocks and stones, and shed each other's 
blood in submissive sacrifice to wooden gods ; the eclipses of the 
sun and moon fill them no more with vague terror; comets 
move on serenely through the Heavens, and pestilence and war 
are flung no more from their fiery hair. The angry voice of an 
avenging Deity is no more heard in the midst of the stofm ; and 
the red lightning comes not with the flash of death, but pass- 
ing harmlessly into its great reservoir, the earth, silently aids in 
the evolution of vegetable and animal life. Wars are less fre- 
quent and less disastrous than of yore; first, men, when cap- 
tured were put to the sword, then enslaved, but now exchanged 
with scrupulous fidelity. Formerly every tribe, or embryo na- 
tion, was a predatory horde ; and all strangers were regarded as 
enemies, and legitimate spoil. The most refined nations, before 
the Christian era, w^ere but robbers on a large scale. The Greeks 
regarded all others than Greeks, as barbarians, and lawful prey 
to their victorious arms. The motto of the Romans was, that 
the God, Terminus, should never retreat, but that the bounds of 
the empire should enlarge forever. In primitive societies feeble 
children and aged parents were alike exposed to death ; and 
blood was avenged by blood, without any nice discrimination 
between the innocent and the guilty. Religion itself has its 



PROGRESS. 223 

epochs of progress ; and many degrees lie between the time 
of sacrifice of human beings to avenging Gods, and that when 
Christ taught the ever-glorious doctrine of universal love to God 
and man. The political rights of men have in the mean time, 
by no means, remained undeveloped. The divine right of kings 
to rule, and their sanctity of person and irresponsibility to man, 
are long since exploded : and every monarchy bases itself upon 
the common good, and the tacit assent of the governed. 

The reformation was as much a political as a religious reno- 
vation. The independence of the English Church and the 
emigration of the Puritans, were but the results of a progression 
of the democratic principle. The declaration of American in- 
dependence was not so much the work of the profound reflec- 
tions of particular men, as the exponent of the spirit of the age, 
and the sum of the freedom of the world. The enunciation of 
the political equality of man was in politics, what the great law 
of love was in religion ; both the eternal rocks of man's best 
happiness and highest glory — imperishable elements in progres- 
sive civilization. The sacrilegious hand of political tyranny 
and priestly superstition have in vain essayed their demolition. 

For the first time in the history of nations was the conserva- 
tive principle of mutual interest, equality — absolute equality, 
so far as God by the inequality of organization would al- 
low — distinctly avowed. There was force in it, tremendous, 
irresistible force, the force of truth and justice. All human ob- 
stacles fell before it like the bent reed before the whirlwind. 
The most venerable monarchies, with their prestige of antiquity 
and Divine right, crumbled into dust : the dark veil of political 
Jesuitism was rent forever; the priesthood, who wielded the 
thunders of usurped Divinity for long centuries, crushing the 
body and soul, were spit upon in their sanctuaries. The bent 
oak. grown to maturity, shivered with its rebound the mad hands 
who thought to trail it in the dust. No ! Americans ; the spirit 
of liberty, though seemingly retarded and turned back, is oti- 
vard. Like as on the fabled wandering Jew, the hand of des- 
tiny is on the nations of the world ; they shall not rest; the 
great, the wealthy, the refined, cut off from all physical pres- 
sure, are touched with drowsy lids ; they would sleep, and be at 
peace, but labor, and famine, and woe, and contempt, are crush- 
ing the hearts, extinguishing the immortal aspirations of God's 
creatures ; a voice which walls of chiselled marble cannot shut 



224 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

out, bids them awake — " March ! jnarch /" till justice be no 
more " compromised," and man's political redemption shall 



Men do not differ as to what are the elements of National 
prosperity and glory ; wealth, numbers in new countries, litera- 
ture, industry, the mechanic arts, scientific agriculture, &c., 
these are indisputable elements of prosperity. Now, if New 
York had excelled Virginia in a bare majority of these elements 
of strength, we might have concluded that the cause Avas in 
some superior advantages that New York had in position, in 
climate, in soil, in extent of territory, in minerals ; but no ; Vir- 
ginia has the advantage in all these ; slavery then would seem 
to he the cause of Virginia's inferiority. But wha* will men 
think when told that there is not an element of strength and 
gloiy in which New York does not excel Virginia in spite of 
all her natural odds ? Slavery must then be set down as the 
sole cause. If a single State only illustrated this contrast, then 
there might still be room for argument. But here are twenty- 
six States covering a continent, embracing all chmates and 
soils, and most unequal spaces in favor of slavery : and yet 
thirteen times has this struggle of ascendency between liberty 
and slavery taken place in these United States, and thirteen 
times has liberty borne off the palm ; not in one of the ele- 
ments of national strength and glory, only, but every one, yes, 
every one, without a single exception. The cause is as shallow 
and transparent as the result. Here in the South are three 
millions of slaves, doing only about one-half of the effective 
work of the same number of whites in the North : because they 
are not so skilful, so energetic, and above all, have not the stimu- 
lus of self-interest, as the whites ; next they waste as much 
again through carelessness and design. The twelve hundred 
millions of capital invested in slaves is a dead loss to the South ; 
the North getting the same number of laborers, doing double 
the work, for the interest on the money ; and sometiiues by 
partnerships, or joint operations, or when men work onHheir 
own account, without any interest being expended for labor. 
Will any mathematician undertake to tell us the astounding 
consequences which would result from this, in half a century? 
Next, then, three millions are of necessity, with rare exceptions, 



SLAVERY— LIBERTY. 225 

cultivators of the soil ; of course mechanic arts, and all other 
arts than those of agriculture, cannot exist. Then all the neces- 
saries and luxuries which are used in the South must be got by 
a double exchange, and of course double freights are to be paid 
by her. We have undertaken to show elsewhere that this ex- 
change costs us in many cases one absolute half of all of one 
year's production. Having lost then all chance of availing our- 
selves of the physical discoveries of the last half century, how 
do wc stand in other respects ? The three millions of slaves 
make all those kinds of labor in which they are engaged espe- 
cially, and all other labor, indirectly, dishonorable ; there is a 
mental debasement in compulsory service, which attaches to the 
thing done; and men may moralize and homihze as much 
as they please, and they never can, as they never have put 
labor on a respectable footing in slave states. To make it 
honorable, yon must make it free. Well, the five millions of 
whites in the slave states do as little work as possible : idleness 
being one of the seeming regalia of wealth and refinement. 
Whatever of mechanical talent or intellect, capable of illustrat- 
ing a nation, there is in the three millions of slaves, is lost for 
ever for want of education : whatever mind capable of achiev- 
ing anything in the laborious departments of human knowledge 
and mechanism, there is in the free five millions, is almost 
entirely lost : because indolence is the fixed habit of the people, 
industry the exception. How as to morals ? is there anything 
in favor of slavery in this respect? There is more crime in 
slave states than in any other form of society under the sun. 
In the eye of God there is no respect of persons : so with the 
moralist. Here, then, to begin with, are three millions of slaves, 
almost without exception, practising adultery, fornication, and 
theft, whilst in other respects they commit as many, if not more 
crimes, than the same numbers in any portion of the civilized 
world. One need but read the newspapers to see that crime ia 
in proportion to the numbers, about five times as great in the 
slave states, as in the free. How else can it be, Avhen the sense 
of public justice is poisoned by slave tenure, and indolence and 
pride and self-indulgence pervade the masses of the people 1 
The less we say about religion the better : the Romans had a 
niche in their temples dedicated to the " Unknown God ;" if 
some of the remarks of certain Divines of the far South are cor- 
rectly reported, the worshippers of the "Unknown God" have 
15 



226 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

not perished with the seven hilled city. Education in slave 
states has been proved impossible. It is impossible, because the 
interest of the slaveholding is an antagonistic one to that of the 
free laborer : the ignorance of the free is the security to the 
holders of the enslaved : and if a better spirit prevails in spile 
of interest, over the slaveholder, the extent of the farms in slave 
states absolutely excludes the poor from coming within reach 
of a teacher. Where is their school fund, won by the common 
blood of the people, and as justly theirs, as the coats on their 
backs? Where is it? we ask. Where is it? is heard from the 
children of the poor, perishing for mental light and moral in- 
struction ! let the slaveholders answer ! The press — they are 
unfaithful sentinels ! — the churches, they have not cried aloud 
and spared not ! " Great statesmen !" — they have built upon a 
sandy foundation ! — economists, they have been walling against 
the stormy ocean with pebbles. Americans, the British nation 
is become the defender of liberty. Webster, Clay, Calhoun, you 
who have the ear and confidence of our people — help ! or we 
shall sink down into Oriental barbarism— our place among na- 
tions will be for ever lost. 



TO ALL THE OPPONENTS OF SLAVERY. 

Friends, have you counted the cost ? If you are not for slavery 
you are against it : be assured there is no middle ground ; be- 
tween liberty and slavery there is not, there cannot be, any com- 
promise. We have been told often, with an air of triumph, that 
R. S., Esq., lost his nomination because he took the " True 
American" for six months, whilst humble men are continually 
informing us, that they are proscribed for opinion's sake. You 
will be assaulted and shut in on all sides; traduced in your 
character ; injured in your persons, in your business, and in 
your families. Never fear, brave hearts: oat meal can be had 
at twenty cents per bushel ; they can't starve us yet : " every 
dog has his day." Only let us, like our revolutionary sires, be 
true to ourselves, and to the liberty of our inheritance, and tri- 
uiriph awaits us : as sure as God regards the right, Kentucky 
shall he free. 



DEMONSTRATION, 227 

Lawyers, merchants, mechanics, laborers, who are your con- 
sumers ; Robert Wickhffe's two hundred slaves ? How many 
clients do you find, how many goods do you sell, how many 
hats, coats, saddles, and trunks, do you make for these two hun- 
dred slaves ? Does Mr. Wickliffe lay out as much for himself 
and his two hundred slaves, as two hundred freemen do? "I 
am a maker of saddles ; formerly 1 had two hundred farmers 
purchasing saddles ; A, B, and C, slaveholders, bought them out ; 
they took all the money they got, from circulation, and went to 
Illinois. I have now only A, B, and C, three customers, they are 
not sufficient, I am starving : I, too, must pack up, and leave 
my native home : a slave takes my place." We stand for the 
whiles : Mr. Wickliffe for the slaves. If any fighting is to be 
done, will you stand by us, who would put bread in the mouths 
of your cliildren, or by Mr. W., who hates and fears you because 
he knows he injures you ? Some of our mechanics are building 
homes here on their own account : this will do very well if it 
is to become a/ree state ; if not, I advise them to desist, for as 
sure as life or death, they nuist lose : a town cannot outlive its 
consumers. The roads into this city have swallowed up some 
of the small towns around, by taking their customers ; but if 
tlic farmers continue, as they have done, enlarging their farms, 
and increasing the slave population, your consumers will, as 
they have, become daily, fewer. You may linger out your lives 
with trade continually decreasing, but your children will be left 
absolutely without employment ; they must emigrate or die. 
But under the free system the towns would grow and furnish a 
home market to the farmers, which in turn would employ more 
labor ; which would consume the manufactures of the towns ; 
and we could then find our business continually increasing, so 
that oiu- children might settle down among us and make indus- 
trious, honest citizens. 



Fallacy op the saying among Laborers, that the 
"Decay of Work is the Strength of Trade." 

There are five men : A is a farmer, B a tailor, C a manufac- 
turer of cloth, D a hatter, and E a house bulkier. Now, A, 
having labored ten days, has made five bushels of meal, which 



228 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

he exchanges, with B, C,D, and E, for such things as they make; 
but in order to get the seUing of another bushel of meal, he has 
sold it hot, so that one half of it spoils before it is eaten. B, C, 
D. and E, also acting upon the same principle, sell A the coat, 
the cloth, the hat, and the house, all intentionally damaged, in 
order that the decay of work may cause A to return sooner. 
What have they all gained ? Nothing ; on the contrary, they 
have each one lost five days' hard work in ten, trying to cheat 
each other. A has had to work enough to pay for two hats, 
&c., when one good one at half the money would have lasted 
him just as long as two under the cheating system. B, instead 
of getting a bushel of meal that would last him a week, has 
been compelled to make two hats instead of one in exchange 
for meal to keep him going. Now, let each one do his best in 
improving himself in the making of their several articles ; then 
each one may live as well on half the labor, and have half his 
time for recreation, improvement in mind and morals. Surely 
" decay in work is not the strength of trade," but " honesty is 
the best policy P 



President Bascom's Review and Slavery. 

We have read this review carefully and painfully. As a 
chronicler of the times, we would be doing him injustice to pass 
with seeming indifference this work, lying right across our path, 
so deeply mixed up with the engrossing political movements of 
this and all countries. Yet we must let this cup pass from us : 
we venture to call Mr. Bascom our personal friend ; we regard 
him as a man of large soul, but the victim of a false position : 
if we are right, no reproaches are needed ; if wrong, all would 
be in vain. We confess that we have, in spite of our attempt 
at neutrality, ever felt a certain softness about the heart when 
we are thrown in company with the Methodists. When we 
have seen, in some of our mountain excursions, one of these 
self-denying men, on a salary of one hundred dollars a year, 
facing the rain and chill blasts of coming winter, alone among 
the bleak hills, with his Bible, searching out the remote occu- 
pant of some rude hovel on a deep ravine, or the mountain side, 
carrying with a confiding and sympathizing spirit, the hopes 
and the consolations of the Gospel to the humble and the 



EX-GOVERNOR METCALF. 



229 



afflicted, without hope of earthly reward, we have said to our- 
self, this is indeed a son of God : with him we will share our 
hearth and board, to the last faggot and crust of bread. Whilst 
the millionnaire feeder on the flocks of cities has never failed to 
excite our instinctive sense of, beware ! these Methodists are 
strong and true-hearted men, said we, and if any man shall 
open up a way whereby slavery shall be attacked, even unto 
death, without conflict with the civil power, which it is not the 
part of Christians to resist, except by the saving influences of 
the Gospel, these will be his friends, and strengthen his hands 
in the unequal contest. This may have been a gleam of boyish 
enthusiasm — a passing reverie — yet we have cherished it long 
and fondly ; if it be a delusion, time will dispel it soon enough. 



LEXINGTON, TUESDAY, JUNE 17. 

The Letter of ex-governor M., upon the "Missouri 
Restriction, Abolition, Slavery, Emancipation ;" 
Published in the Frankfort Commonwealth^ Feb. 14, 1845. 

This letter we re-publish to-day in order that our readers may 
see it for themselves, and that we may always give our oppo- 
nents a fail- hearing. It purpoits to have been written in reply 
to charges made against the ex-Governor, before the Presiden- 
tial election in '44 ; and when we consider its temper, we are 
somewhat at a loss to know why the gentleman remained so 
long quiescent under imputations which now excite in him so 
much indignation. We think the public Avill agree with us, in 
our inference, that Mr. M. has taken up some flying reports, as 
a mere pretext for striking a deadly blow at the cause of real 
liberty and pure republicanism, through the odious persons of 
other states, whom it has ever been the policy of the slave party, 
both in the South and the North, to calumniate ; with a view to 
Btrike down the friends of safe and rational emancipation at 
home, by transferring, at a word, the accumulated vengeance 
of long years upon any one whom these patriots, par excellence, 
may stigmatize as ^^ mad dogs. ^' This shallow game, whilst 
all the presses were on one side, was easy enough. But now, 



230 THE writimjS of cassius m. clay. 

since there are two avowed emancipation presses in the State^ 
and many more whom an enlightened self-interest leads to favor 
the cause of truth, this wily politician will find it can be no 
longer played, except at a ruinous loss, not only of logic, but of 
character. Now, we tell the people of Kentucky, that we are 
not responsible for the opinions of the abolitionists of the North ; 
yet, after all this bugaboo of long years, what will the commu- 
nity think when we assure them that there are just as good, 
and religious, and moral, and peaceable men among the " abo- 
litionists," as T. M. himself. Take William Lloyd Garrison, 
upon whose devoted head a price has been set by the state of 
Georgia, who has been shamelessly hunted like a wild beast 
through the land ; yet Garrison is a man who is opposed to . 
bloodshed, in all cases, a non-resistant, an enemy to war and to 
the gallows ! It is true, that latterly, the Garrisonian party 
have come out for the dissolution of the Union ; " no union with 
slaveholders " being their motto. This, we by no means wish 
to palliate; but between the disimionists and perpetual slave- 
ry men, the world will not hesitate to say, that the disunion- 
ists are the truest men. Take the " liberty party ;" they stand 
by the Constitution in its whole letter and spirit, and are for le- 
gal and equitable reform only. There are some evil, and ma- 
lignant, and fanatical spirits among the abolitionists, it is true', 
but it is as unjust to denounce them as a class, as it would be 
to call all slaveholders murderers, because some dastards among 
them, plot against the lives of the friends of liberty in the South. 
Were it not for the Governor's violent protestations against 
any suspicion of aspiration for office, one would imagine that he 
has given way to a temper exasperated by the loss of "the 
spoils," when one so ^'- sweeV towards the abolitionists before 
Noveraber, should now esteem those, loathsome ^^vertjmi" in 
February '45, who even suspected him of having fraternity of 
feeling with that contemned party. Surely he is a much in- 
jured man, for the public have regarded him for years as a 
standing candidate for any good sinecure that might fall upper- 
most. And if his songs and his hunting shirt, have not proved 
as useful to him or the community of late years, as his stone 
hammer did in early life, he ought to submit with a becoming 
grace to the progress of the times and the shrewd good sense of 
the people, who might very well honor the honest mechanic, 
whilst they contemned the shallow tricks of the political moun- 



EX-GOVERNOR METCALF. 231 

tebank. The Governor attaches some importance to himself 
for having voted with Mr. Clay, for the admission of Missouri 
into the Union ; now, if this is the basis of his fame with pos- 
terity, his ambition is low enough to meet with ample satiety ; 
and the stone walls which he has built as a mason w411 much 
outlive the fame of his acts as a statesman. We never approved 
of this vote of Mr. Clay's; and whilst we regard his action on 
that occasion as evidence of his intellectual eminence, and su- 
perior control over his contemporaries, we at the same time, 
esteem it the unfortunate beginning of a course of policy, which 
has well nigh lost us our liberties, and driven our republic upon 
the very verge of ruin. As w^ell as the loss of that moral pow- 
er on his part, which has shut him out from the presidency of 
the United States, and from that culminating ray of glory which 
for all time would have illuminated his name, if this people had 
found him in '44, as they did in 1799, the fearless advocate of 
the universal liberty of men. He should have said to Missouri, 
" The Constitution which I love, and have sworn before God 
and the world to support, has no clause providing that any hu- 
man being, either red, white, or black, or mixed, shall be en- 
slaved ; but on the contrary, it says in its preamble, tliat it was 
formed to 'establish justice' and to secure the blessings of liber- 
t}^ to us and our posterity, and we know not where you get the 
authority to enslave the African more than the Indian, or the 
Asiatic, or the European, or the Anglo-Saxon American. More- 
over, this same Constitution says, art. V. of A, ' No person shall 
be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of 
law,' that is, unless for some offence ascertained by law, and 
punishable by the verdict of a jury. Now an African is as much 
a ' person ' as a Saxon, or a Frenchman ; and, since no one 
has asked that the courts should put in force the habeas corpus, 
another constitutional right to cause these holders of the blacks 
in durance, to show by what authority these ' persons' were 
held, in opposition to the Constitution and laws of the Union, 
the only sovereign, to which the people of Missouri, being in 
the territorial bounds of the same, owed entire allegiance — in 
consideration of all these positive laws and natural right, we de- 
clare before all men, that you shall never be admitted into fel- 
lowship with us, a republican and free people, whose every fun- 
damental principle of equal liberty your Constitution tramples in 
the dust." Such, Mr. M., should have been the declaration of 



232 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

the sons of Washington ; and if this had dissolved the 
Union and drenched the land in blood, then, by the God of bat- 
tles, every lover of the human family should have cried out, let 
it perish from the place of nations, and from the memory of 
mankind. But such was not the dread alternative ; there is not, 
and never has been, and God forbid that there ever should be, 
a time in the history of this nation, when the South shall dare 
to dissolve this Union, with the diabolical design of maintaining 
African slavery ; and if that day ever does come, then will the 
crime and its atonement be but one deed ! 

We follow this champion of the slave party in the order of 
liis letter. He "differs radically in opinion with those of our 
countrymen, who maintain that Kentucky is at no distant day 
to become a non-slaveholding state." Thus far an unimpor- 
tant opinion only, for he speaks for the slave party : but when 
he undertakes to speak for us, the free white non-slaveholders 
of the state, we say, softly, governor, we are the best judges of 
our highest interest, and a friend of perpetual slavery is not a 
safe keeper of our conscience. We say, then, that T. M., 
holding interest not only different from, but antagonistic to 
ours, has no right to speak for us. " It is a great error to sup- 
pose that those of our countrymen who own no slaves, will ever 
go for emancipation, and the retention of the emancipated 
within our borders." Here is the great battle ground, M. 
knows it, we feel it ; we enter upon it cautiously, but without 
trembling. We say, look to reason and your own conscience, 
and then speak boldly to your countrymen, as men of sound 
heads and true hearts, and leave the result to God. I. Then, 
we are opposed to banishing the liberated blacks from the state, 
because we deem it. in many respects, inexpedient. H. Be- 
cause it is unjust. We beheve it to be inexpedient, because, to 
be plain with our readers, at home and abroad, the great ob- 
stacle to emancipation is the loss of the moncy^ vested in the 
slave. To colonize, you increase the loss, to the amount of the 
land purchased for the colony, the necessary outfit of clothing, 
provisions, implements of agriculture, and trade, and the cost 
of transfer. If slaveholders dread the loss of slaves by emanci- 
pation, will they love it the more when, by colonization, you 
propose an increased expenditure? Shrewd slaveholders see 
this difficulty, and with that Jesuitical cunning, which charac- 
terizes the friends of peij»etual thraldom, they attempt to make 



EX-GOVERNOR METCALF. 233 

US the slaves of our own prejudices, by exciting us against the 
black, till we are unwilling to live with him, when free, whilst 
they believ^e themselves secure against emancipation and re- 
moval, by the difficulties of its achievement. Thus, you hear 
them with alternate words of honeyed tone and bitter denuncia- 
tion, saying : " I am as much in favor of liberty as you, if- you 
will send the blacks to the moon ; but unless you send them to 
the moon, I'll see you damned before I assent to their liberation 
among us." Is not that the argument, governor ? Worse yet, 
just read his Jesuitical letter. " Heavens, the monster talks of 
ijanishing the poor negro to the moon !" " So," to cut the mat- 
ter short, "we go for perpetual slavery." No, M., we will 
not advocate the '• banishment " of the black, because all na- 
tions have thought expulsion from one's native home sufficient 
punishment for the greatest crimes ; we will not, therefore, go 
for banishment. If we fall in this cause, we will fall on solid 
ground, that our body may be a rampart to the gallant spirits 
who shall succeed us in an undying cause. We will not be 
driven by our foes into bottomless quicksands to be swallowed 
up, "like dumb dogs,"* to be forgotten forever. Yet this is 
merely one individual opinion, we do not presume to dictate to 
the emancipation j)arty in Kentucky. All we say is, we are 
opposed to emancipation with banishment; yet sooner than see 
slavery made perpetual, we are willing, if there be no other al- 
ternative, to yield up our own wishes to the majority of our 
countrymen. Leaving this part of the question here now, in- 
tending to give it an ample discussion hereafter, we pass on. 

We think every honest, self-respecting laborer in Kentucky, will 
repel, with just indignation, the Governor's shallow sycophancy, 
in calling tliem " nature's noblemen," for doing the very thiiig 
which he dares in a few subsequent sentences to characterize 
as an act of " intolerable inhumanity J'' If such is the Gover- 
nor's code of morals, we doubt whether any are so poor as to 
envy that " eminence " which he boasts over his former com- 
peers. Which by no means for the first time in the history of 
men, has hardened the heart, vitiated the soul, obscured the 

* This ia the elegant language of some of our pro-slavery friends— that iu 
struggling against the stream of public opinion, we will go down like " dumb 
dogs." Tlic Governor, iu his letter, reiterates the same idea. We may go 
down as "dogs," but the Governor, as well as some others, shall long have 
cause to remember that we are not " dumb," 



234 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

reason, and caused the unbalanced sons of blind fortune to look 
down with contempt upon the humble companions of earlier 
days. We should despise ourself if for any unworthy purpose, 
•we should excite unjust prejudices in the minds of one portion 
of the community against the other. And if we tell our fellow- 
laborers the real sentiments of such slaveholders as M., it 
is because he has attempted to corrupt their minds by unjust 
and ignoble appeals to the lowest of human passions. They 
impoverish you by the tremendous and overpowering competi- 
tion of slave labor, and then cry oui in extenuation of their con- 
duct towards the blacks, " they are better off than the poor 
whites." They first take away your bread, your schools, and 
all social advantages, and then add insult to injury, by placing 
you, in the category of economical progress, a degree below the 
slave. You all understand very well, my countrymen, how peni- 
tentiary labor ruins your business, and the mechanics have 
petitioned the legislature to prevent them from manufacturing 
in the penitentiary such articles as they themselves were en- 
gaged in making. Now slave labor is penitentiary labor, the 
master standing in the same relation to the slave, that C. 
does to the convicts : each getting their labor done for the mere 
outlay of victuals, clothes, and shelter, without either giving 
wages. Thus every laborer in Kentucky is injured by the one 
hundred and eighty thousand slaves, as if the same number of 
Irislnnen, Dutchmen, or Englishmen, should come in here and 
agree to work as the convicts or the slaves do, without wages. 
Free the blacks, and they either would not work at all, or they 
would require wages ; which would prevent you from being un- 
derbid as you now are. We know that many of our mechanics 
and laboring men have accumulated estates, and live in as refined 
and luxurious a manner as many slaveholders. But these are 
exceptions, arising from superior intelligence, energy, and long 
hours of steady toil, which surmount all the counteracting 
weight of slave competition. It is a great fahacy to talk of the 
wages of laborers in the slave states, being higher than the 
wages of laborers in the free states, for our articles of purchase 
here are higher than in the free states ; and a man getting one 
hundred dollars in the free, can live as well as one getting two 
hundred dollars in the slave states. Let no laboring man allow 
himself to be insulted by this vulgar aristocracy of slave tenure, 
by the continual cry of " association" with the blacks. Every 



EX-GOVERNOR METCALF. 235 

man and woman in this country can choose their own com- 
panions ; and, so far as my knowledge goes, the wealthy liave 
been more frequently in dishonorable intercourse with the 
blacks than the laboring poor. We say, fearless of contradic- 
tion, that there is more amalgamation of the two races in the 
slave states, according to numbers, than in the free states. The 
injustice of the free states towards the blacks, is not a matter at 
issue. One wrong is no justification of another wrong : and we 
are pleased to see that the free states are beginning to place the 
blacks upon a better footing than of yore ; so that the Governor 
will soon find himself, without the apology of companionship 
in evil, the last miserable refuge of little souls. 

So far as the " slow progress of colonization *' is concerned, 
w^e throw no obstacles in the w^ay of this benevolent scheme 
of Christianizing and civilizing Africa. For those purposes 
we wish it well, and have become a life member of the Coloni- 
zation Society, but, regarding it as no remedy for slavery, we 
throw it out of all estimate of the elements of emancipation at 
home ; unless some great change upon this subject takes place 
in the minds of the people of the free states, which we do by 
no means anticipate. There can be no doubt but that, pre- 
ceding the calling of a convention, many slaves will be sent out 
of the state, notwithstanding its '• inhumanity." And we mere- 
ly allude to it to show that the Governor's foresight is as shallow 
as his compliments, or as real as his affected sympatJdes : for 
he knows that there is a yearly trade of thousands of human 
souls, carried on between Kentucky and the South, and this, his 
humane system of life-long legislation has never attempted 
to stop ! 

The Governor attempts to grow facetious, and ranks the 
friends of gradual emancipation with the " Millerites," and 
" Live-for-evers." " I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that 
word." The lovers of justice, those who, through many perils 
and much contempt, battled on for the right, who gave up their 
whole intellect to the defence of the liberties of mankind, though 
humble and obscure, with large souls and untameable spirits, 
trusting on to the last, shall not pass from the memory of men. 
From generation to generation, lighting up congenial sentiments 
hi the hearts of the brave and the true, they shall not perish, 
but '' live for ever." The charge against the abolitionists, of 
failing to throw the balance of power, w hich they held in their 



236 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

liaiids, in favor of the Whigs, and thus exclude slaveholding 
Texas from coming into the Union, is true. God knows we 
labored in this cause w4th a devotion and sleepless energy, 
worthy of better success than awaited our party, or than the 
cold recognition of the services rendered by our humble self, 
which awaited us on our return to our native state. Yet, to say 
that the abolitionists were operated upon by less lofty, or 
sincere and pure motives than T. M., or ourselves, has 
never had the slightest proof to sustain it. And we do not 
scruple to characterize such insinuations as unworthy of any 
man of right principles and honorable bearing. Whether the 
Indian or the African are to be " ever held as inferior to the 
whites," remains with God only to determine. But to exercise 
perpetual despotism over them " because the whites have the 
power," is a sentiment only worthy of the source whence it 
emanated, and cannot fail to excite disgust and indignation 
throughout all Christendom. If despotism is to be perpetuated, 
give us a splendid monarchy over our equals, where the magni- 
tude of the game will stir the spirit, and exercise the intellect. 
If the finer feehngs aretobe crushed, and all the sympathies of the 
heart dried up in one stern and inexorable passion for supremacy 
and glorious achievement, well ; but for vulgar, imbecile, negro 
slavery aristocracy — for this, no — not for this, will " I file my 
mind." The Governor says, in connexion with Texas and 
slavery, that he " had no compunctions whatever, on the score 
of extending- the slave boundary," and proceeds to exhort his 
countrymen to be ever ready, like him, to shed their blood 
in the defence of Texan slavery. Well, we don't com- 
plain of this, we know not what cause such blood would 
better grace ; but we protest in the name of the immortal 
patriots, who declared that all men were entitled to life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness," against shedding the blood of 
the Americans in such ignoble cause. With Texas and her 
slavery we have nothing to do, farther than that we are ready to 
guaranty her independence against the unjust interference of 
any European government. But we tell the ex-Governor, that 
if Texas comes into this Union as a territory, and she can come 
in in no other way, that her slaves are free. And if she comes 
in as a state, contrary to the Constitution and laws of this con- 
federacy, as soon as we have the power we will put her out 
again. And transmitted down from generation to generation, 



EX-GOVERNOR METCALF. 237 

shall go the watchword, " no more slave territory added to the 
Union : and the constitutional extinction of slavery in the 
present statesP 

If T. M. had discussed the subject of slavery and emanci- 
pation without going out of the way to take an impotent blow 
at England, he would have at least preserved some show of 
originality ; and not have followed a track made disgusting to 
all enlarged minds by reiterating the spiteful remarks of igno- 
rant and shallow demagogues. No doubt England might spare 
mucli from her splendid and munificent church and state estab- 
lishments to her laboring classes. Yet, notwithstanding all this, 
England supports more numbers in comfortable circumstances 
than any other same number of square miles under the sun. 
And if the sustaining of human life in its fullest numbers in 
comfort, be the design of God, then has England best accom- 
plished her mission on earth. It is true, that the lower strata 
of society are bitterly oppressed by want in England, but this is 
a necessary result of human existence. Want, disease, and the 
sword, cut off the human species in all old countries, which, 
like all created vegetable and animal existences, has many more 
embryo lives than there are places for, or nourishment on earth 
to nurture into maturity. We deny that there are "slaves in 
England." The lowest laborer in the mines of Cornwall or the 
factories of Manchester may become the Premier of Great 
Britain, a power greater than the throne ; and from the lowest 
haunts of famine may and will again arise as there have already 
arisen, many of the first jurists, statesmen, and men of letters, 
in the British empire. How many from the three millions of 
slaves here may aspire to similar eminence? Here statute law 
sets at defiance the law of nature and of God ; there nature as 
she should be, is the only arbiter of the destinies of men. We 
envy England her freedom and her glory : she has become the 
defender of the liberty of mankind ; and America, once glorious 
and proud America, has become the propagandist of slavery 
among men. If the slaveholders expect to maintain the war 
against Liberty and Republicanism, they must get some more 
Herculean champion than the man with the hunting shirt : and 
let the ex-Governor return once more to his proper sphere of 
hammering stone : or singing the really good old song of 
" Wife, Children., and FriendsP 



238 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY, 

Death of Andrew Jackson. 

Andrew Jackson died at the Hermitag-e, on the 8th instant. 
Whatever difference of opinion may prevail about his measures 
as a statesman, every true-hearted American cannot but be 
be proud of his mihtary fame. That Jackson was a great man, 
no one who regards the remarkable impress which he made 
upon the millions of his day, can deny. His strength was that 
of the will and the passions, rather than the force of eminent 
intellect. Like Sylla he never spared an enemy or foigot a 
friend : he must of course then go down to posterity with a 
divided fame. The man who, like Washington, would live 
in the affections of awhole people or of the world, must, like him, 
be just : for justice is the only basis of universal admiration and 
sure immortality. 



'^^ Divorce. — Beauty in Women. — Physical Laws. — 
Slavery. 

The number of divorces in the slave states is startling to the 
statesman as well as the moralist. As the marriage state is one 
sanctioned by the Christian code, as well as by the judgment of 
the wise of all times and nations, we shall at the risk of injuring 
the delicacy and refined sensibilities of women, inquire into the 
causes which load the tables of our halls of legislation with 
thousands of applications for divorces. These petitions come 
mostly from women, praying to be divorced from their husbands ; 
generally on the ground of infidelity to the marriage vow. Many 
persons have supposed that climate is the cause ; giving way to 
the common opinion, that warm climates favor the rage of law- 
less passion. Not so. It is true that warm climates are inclin- 
ing, but not immediate and necessary causes of animal or ideal 
passion. Warmth of temperature produces lassitude, and con- 
sequently idleness, and the old saw, from time immemorial, is, 
that " an idle brain is the devil's workshop ; " thus far, then, 
only, is a warm climate favorable to passion. In cold climates 
on the contrary, the pulse beats much quicker than in southern 
latitudes. And persons who are wealthy and self- indulged, 
under the same pressure of moral restraint, we undertake to say, 
are equally, if not more passionate in the North than in the 



SLAVERY AND DIVORCE. 239 

South. Modern science and modem statistics are overturning- 
many hoary errors ; and the world was astonished to find, that 
Sweden and Russia have turned out to be as frequent in sexual 
crime as Italy and France. As this difference, then, between 
the North and the South is not owing to climate, nor to rehgion, 
nor to government, for these two last are the same in both coun- 
tries, how comes it that the applications for divorce are mon- 
strously greater in the South than in the North, although there 
are twice the numbers in the Northern that there are in the 
Southern States? We believe that we may, without fear of 
refutation, ascribe this difference to slavery. The moral influ- 
ence of slavery upon the marriage vow cannot but be, by 
unhinging all the instinctive ideas of right and wrong, disastrous. 
But the physical and moral laws are inseparably connected ; 
and we shall here confine ourselves solely to the consideration 
of slavery as being antagonistic to the physical laws of our 
nature ; and in conse(iuence subversive, in respect to divorce, of 
the moral law, and man's true happiness. 

The many guards which nature has taken against the loss 
of any known species, vegetable and animal, as all naturalists 
know, are of tremendous power. In the human species, beauty 
in women is especially designed, as the eccentric and witty Bur- 
ton would have it, to cause that "a man be not too nuich 
absorbed in his books, seeing that there are other things that 
must need be attended to." A sense of gratitude and duty, 
habit, propriety, common interests, and convenience, in the 
absence of religion, may keep man and wife together well 
enough, without " physical beauty " and its consequence, sexual 
love. But when in that case a really lovely object meets the 
luiaccustomed eye of a man of quick sensibility to the beautiful, 
it takes a higher degree of virtue than falls to the lot of most 
men, if there is not some weakening of the foundations of con- 
nubial devotion. The Southern women in the United States 
are admitted by foreigners, as well as claimed by o.ur gallant 
countrymen, to be among the most beautiful in the world : but 
at the same time they are the most fragile of all beauties. They 
begin to fade in a few years after marriage; and maternity, in 
a great many cases, leaves but a wreck of what was once most 
lovely. From infancy our girls, who have slaves, begin to be 
waited upon, till locomotion becomes a most painful thing. The 
young women grow up with a fair skin, and from generous 



240 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

feeding, are apparently fall in development, but there is no 
muscle, nothing but fat, which the first trials of the physical 
frame dissipate, and the whole system is collapsed. For the 
want of exercise in the house, and in the open air, added to the 
infamous and disgusting pressure of the waist and all the vital 
organs, the secretions are faulty ; the skin, instead of being of 
a firm velvet feeling texture, becomes pale and sallow ; then 
come low spirits, peevishness, ennui, disgust, and then divorce. 
Put away your slaves : nature never made provision for a slave, 
having decreed that work, health, and happiness should be in- 
separably and inexorably united. If you want to drink, go to 
the pump or to the spring and get it ; if to bathe, prepare your 
own batb, or plunge into the running stream ; make your own 
beds, sweep your own rooms, and wash your own clothes ; 
throw away corsets, and nature herself will form your bustles. 
Then you will have full chests, glossy hair, rosy complexions, 
smooth velvet skins, muscular, rounded limbs, graceful tour- 
nures, elasticity of person, eyes of alternate fire and most melt- 
ing languor ; generous hearts, sweet tempers, good husbands, 
long lives of honeymoons, and — no divorces. When we read 
of the free clothing, the gymnastic exercises, the household 
duties of the Greeks, we are not surprised at the exquisite love- 
liness of the marble copies of those most perfect exemplars of 
Burke's line of beauty. But, when, under the Southern system 
of dress and no exercise, we see great profusion of clothes piled 
up in most rigid opposition to nature's known lines of gradual 
swell, and imperceptible declension, and attenuation of limb, 
we do not fail to remember, that the owl, of all birds, having 
the greatest bulk of feathers, has also the most ragged person. 
And " flaccid skins," and " forked radishes," " come o'er the 
spirit of our dream — what business had they there at such a 
time?" 



"Give the Devil his Due." 

In our first article, in allusion to Robert Wickliffe, we followed 
common rumor in imputing to him mercenary motives in the 
defence of the slave Moses. We are credibly informed (hat Bill, 
who was'^also hung, being the guilty culprit, Mr. Wickliffe 
showed a noble boldness in attempting, in opposition to great 



THE CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION 241 

popular excitement, to save Moses, who, from accounts, was 
entirely innocent. Now we are always ready to admit, that the 
" Old Duke " has some good traits, among which we do not 
number the unrelenting steadiness of denunciation with which 
he pursues a good-natnred fellow like ourself 



LEXINGTON, TUESDAY, JUNE 24. 

The Constitutional Question. 

We })ul)lish to-day the two numbers signed " Madison,^'' first 
publislied in the Observer and Reporter, and afterwards repub- 
lished in the Frankfort Commonwealth of February 25th, 1845. 
The pertinacity with which the author forces these essays upon 
our notice, either proves that he courts the honor of a reply, or 
that he vainly imagines that his arguments are conclusive 
against the positions of tlie speech which he reviews. " Madi- 
son," it will be seen, though apparently courteous, (as a lawyer 
can never brook that sandaled feet should enter upon ground 
hallowed by the priestess of the green bag, " the perfection of 
human reason," which was and is from everlasting to everlast- 
ing, '• from tiie time whereof the memory of man runneth not 
to the contrary — that is, from the time of Richard the First ") 
gently chastises our presumption in entering upon a subject of 
so " much delicacy" "which the wisest and ablest statesmen the 
nation can boast," and " Madison " even, " approach with timid- 
ity:^ Well, to tell the truth, that is the very reason why we 
have approached it : we enter upon the constitutional question 
of slavery, because it is full of hoary error and sanctified fraud. 
We enter the sanctuary of American Liberty, sword in hand, 
determined to expel, if possible, the wearers of the blood-stained 
ermine, who have prostituted its holy places to the sustaining 
and perpetuating slavery among men. 

We shall, without following " Madison" through liis long evo- 
lution of trite facts and distorted construction, restate our ideas 
of the power of the national government over slavery, and sus- 
tain them by such arguments as history, the Constitution, and 
com;;? on se^ise, may present us. ■ • - - .' 

16 



242 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

I. I contend, then, that the original thirteen states had, and 
now have exclusive control over slavery within their borders. 
II. That in all places where Congress had, or now has exclu- 
sive control, where slavery did not previously exist by the sove- 
reign power of the thirteen states, there slavery does not and 
cannot exist. III. That in no territory in this wide empire is 
there now a slave ; that the supreme court, under a writ of 
habeas corpus, is bound to liberate any person so claimed as a 
slave. Here then, are our three propositions, word for word, as 
quoted by " Madison ;" upon these we will stand or fall. 

The proposition in clause I, is not a matter of controversy be- 
tween us and the slaveholders, whom " Madison " represents ; 
in that we all agree. The thirteen original states were, at one 
time, dependent on the British crown, and on that only, having 
a separate and distinct organization with regard to each other. 
When, by the successful maintenance of the Declaration of 1776, 
and by the assent of the British nation, they became independ- 
ent, they stood, by the laws of nations, equal sovereigns with 
the other nations of the globe. African slavery existed in 
all the states at the time of the formation of the Constitution, 
except a few who had abolished slavery since the declaration of 
American independence. No nation on earth had any right to 
interfere with the internal laws of these sovereigns, for Vattell 
says, "nations" are "free and independent of each other, in the 
same manner as men are naturally free and independent. 
From this liberty and independence it follows, that every 
nation is to judge of what its conscience demands." " In all 
cases then, where a nation has the liberty of judging what its 
duty requires, another caniiot oblige it to act in such or such 
a manner.^' . ^^ For the atteinpting- this would be doing an 
injiiry to the liberty of nations^ — Vattell, Pref , p. iii : London 
edition, 1773. Here, then, before the formation of the Union, 
without controversy, no state had a right to interfere with any 
other state. Whetber slavery be in accordance with natural 
law, or revealed Divine law, it matters not, the ultra- abohtion- 
ist of the North is forbid to interfere : just as the United States 
denying the natural and divine right of man to more than one 
wife, is forbid by the law of nations from interfering with the 
Turk, who claims, by the internal laws of his own Ottoman 
Empire, the right to two or more wives. When the Union 
was formed, the states lost none of their power over slavery, ex- 



THE CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION. 243 

cept what was yielded up ; and as none was yielded up, none 
was lost. For the national Union is a government of special, 
delegated powers, and it declares that " the powers not delegat- 
ed to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it 
to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the 
people.— Art. X., A. The first proposition is tenable then, be- 
yond the power of cavil. 

II. '' That in all places where Congress had, or now has ex- 
clusive control, where slavery did not previously exist by the 
sovereign power of the thirteen states, there slavery does not 
and cannot exist." Remark, now, that we are arguing this 
question as jurists, not as statesmen. With jurists the question 
is, not what is expedient or best, or what will be the consequen- 
ces, but rnhat is the law 7 Now, as a statesman, with regard 
to the district of Columbia, a place where Congress has exclu- 
sive jurisdiction, we would vote as a member of Congress to 
liberate the slave, and pay the master a fair eqiiivalcnt. be- 
cause the whole nation has sanctioned the error, and the whole 
nation should bear the loss. Such was the opinion of (lie Brit- 
ish nation with regard to West India slavery ; although, no 
doubt, ever}^ slave in the British dominions under habeas corpus, 
might have been liberated by the same considerations in respect 
to the Constitution, which declares all men in England free. 
But sitting as a judge of the United States, being restricted to 
the bare question, what is the law, we should declare every 
slave in the District of Columbia /ree. If Madison had put the 
word " government " in the place of " legislature," in the follow- 
ing sentence, it would have been true ; as it is, it is false : 
" The rights of property and the rights of persons, included 
within their boundaries, are under the absolute dotninion of 
one national legislature." We can scarcely restrain expressions 
of infinite contempt for such a declaration. In the simplicity 
of our heart, we had supposed that this was a "Constitutional" 
government, and that the Legislature was not " absolute." 
"The rights of persons" then living, in places of the "exclusive 
control " of Congress, are to be ascertained, not by the will of 
an "absolute Legislature," but by the Constitution; to that 
then let us look. Now, the preamble of that instrument has it, 
that the government was formed to " establish justice, and to 
secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." 
By this clause, then, without a more latitudinarian construction 



244 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

than that which in England and in Massachusetts hberated the 
African, there cannot be a slave in the district of Columbia. 
Paley declares that " Natural rights, are a man's right to his 
life, limbs, and liberty ; his right to the produce of his personal 
labor, to the use, in common with others, of air, light, water." 
Paley' s Works^ chap. X., p. 42. Philadelphia edition : 1831. 

" Natural liberty consists properly in a power of acting as one 
thinks just, without any restraint or control ; unless by the law 
of nature ; being a right inherent in us by birth, and one of the 
gifts of God to man at his creation, when he endowed him with 
the faculty of free will." Chittifs Blackstone, p. 89. New York 
edition : 1842. 

The Declaration of American independence says : '• We hold 
these truths to be self-evident : that all men are created equal, 
that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable 
rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap- 
piness." Now these various high authorities all agree, that it 
is right and "just" that no man shall be enslaved without crime 
— and of course, if the preamble of the United States' Constitu- 
tion be enforced, slavery in the district falls. But it seems that 
our fathers did not intend to rest our liberties on such vague 
foundations : they bring the slaveholder up to the bar of the 
LETTER as well as the spirit of the instrument. " No jjerson 
shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process 
of law." — Art. V, A. Here is the omnipotent law of the District, 
from which there is no appeal. If James K. Polk holds us in 
slavery in the district, we ask for a writ of habeas corpus, 
which brings us before Judge Taney — we plead that we are a 
person guilty of no crime, not that we are white or black or of 
Yankee or Virginia descent. Mr. Polk. " The defendant is a 
slave by the laws of Maryland and Virginia." Mr. Taney. 
■' They became extinct by the deed of cession — this instrumen- 
tality is the supreme law of the land here, it asks you only what 
crime this man has done." Mr. Polk. " None." Mr. Taney. 
"The defendant is free." Mr. Polk. "The deed of cession 
guarantied slavery by the assent of the legal organs 
of the Union— good faith requires that you restore me my 
slave." Mr. Taney. "An act done by a single individual, 
or by the combined authority of the whole Union, contrary 
to the Constitution is void ; let the defendent go." Mr. Polk. 
"Well, I acknowledge the justice of your decision, but this 



CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION. 245 

defendant does not come under the law : he is a "tiling'' not a 
'• person^' he is my " slave,'' and that you know makes one a 
thing— by the slave code, everywhere." Mr. Taney, looking 
intently at the defendant, and then turning over to Art. V., A. sec. 
11. and III. " He has every semblance of a man, but perhaps 
is only a beast, yet here I find the only slaves known to 
this Constitution, called ^^ jjersonsP The thing then being a 
'• person," no matter whether white, red, or black, " for all of 
those colors in the South are slaves, and as Upham has it, and 
common sense agrees, " words are not to be used without mean- 
ing" — the language can mean nothing else— and " we are not 
to use the same word in the same discourse with different mean- 
ings"— [6}j. Phi., p. 194, Portland edition, 1828] the "slave," 
the "thing," the ^- person,''^ must go '■^freeP If this be not 
good law and right reason, we are a slave, and " Madison" may 
come in any place of exclusive national jurisdiction, and take 
possession of us and ours, and there is no power in the American 
Constitution, or the Union of these states to save us ! The 
word "had" in this second clause, we admit had reference to 
the new states, formed out of what was once territory, never 
having been a part of the land over ich'ich the original thir- 
teen had extended slavery. Up to the time, then, wlien the 
independence of those states was acknowledged, by the formal 
act of admission into the Union, wh'dst the power of the 
national government was over them as territories, notwith- 
standing the treaties of cession from Spain and France, every 
slave therein was free. That these ^^ persons^^ having been 
at one definite j^^riod free, could not be barred the right of 
habeas corpus, and restoration to liberty, on the ground that 
the territory had become a " sovereign state," the case lately 
decided by Judge McLean fully sustains. A slave was carried 
by his master to Illinois ; but the master finding that this act 
made him free removed to Missouri ; subsequently the slave 
escaped to Illinois ; a certain citizen assisted the slave to elude 
the pursuit of the master, who had come upon him in Illinois. 
The master brought an action against the citizen of Illinois. 
Judge McLean decided that the slave was free, by the act of the 
master carrying the slave to Illinois — once free, always free — 
and that an action for damages could not be sustained. We 
leave it to jurists to say if we have not sustained our second 
proposition. Yet, as we said at the Tremont Temple, in Boston, 



246 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

we are willing for one, as a mere citizen, that the new states 
having become "sovereign," by admission into the Union, 
should be left to the entire and undisturbed responsibility of 
holding slaves in their oivn limits. Whether these " persons" 
held as slaves will be returned into slavery again under the 
Constitutional requisition, after having escaped from the place 
of municipal jurisdiction, is a question which we imagine, as it 
cannot endanger the peace or safety of those states, will be 
decided after the same manner as Judge McLean's late judg- 
ment. So much with regard to the present slave States — as to 
Texas, we, in common with a great portion of the American 
people, give them warning in time, that if she comes in as a 
territory, her slaves are free, if she comes in as a sovereign, 
it is contrary to the United States' Constitution — there is no law 
in the Union requiring her slaves escaping from "service" to 
be returned into bondage — and ive vnll put her ont whenever 
we have the poiver. 

Proposition III. is but another specification of proposition II. and 
is maintained by the same reasoning, which need not be repeated, 
for it is hardly worth while to contend among men capable of 
appreciating a legal argument, that if Congress cannot make 
slaves in the District by immediate leg'islation, she cannot 
make them indirectly, by allowing her agent a territorial legis- 
lature, or a convention of her subjects, in remote places, to make 
them. As has been justly and forcibly said. Congress can no 
more make a slave than she can a king. It will be perceived 
by the reader that the whole of " Madison's" second number, is 
based upon a misconception of our argument : we have never, 
anywhere, contended that the 5th article of A. had a force pene- 
trating beyond the exclusive jurisdiction of the Union to the 
rescue of citizens or persons of the states legally held in durance ; 
and if the slaves were free in the states formed by the additiou 
of foreign territory, it was because of the action of the Consti- 
tution, before the sovereignty of the states by admission into 
the Union was acknowledged. And once a freeman, always a 
freeman, is an admitted principle of law ; and in accord- 
ance with natural justice and the spirit of the age. I will only 
strengthen my position by one quotation from Alexander 
Hamilton, and leave the matter to the serious consideration of 
those clothed with the judicial power of this republic. " For 
why declare that things shall not be done, which there is no 



CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION. ' 247 

power to do ? The truth is, after all the declamation we have 
heard, that the Constitution is itself, in every rational sense, and 
to every useful purpose, a bill of rights." — Fed., p. 402-3. 
Such was the language of Hamilton before the 5th Art. of A. 
was made ; but our fathers, to put the thing beyond the power 
of cavil, afterwards spread it out in broad and eternal charac- 
ters. Cursed be the sacrilegious hand that would destroy or 
pervert this the sole palladium of the liberty of the whole 
American people and the friendless wanderers of the world. 

Whilst we are upon this subject, we will give our opinion 
upon the remaining bearings of the Constitution upon slavery, 
which are not brought by " Madison" into the field of discussion. 
There are only three clauses bearing upon slavery : the one 
allowing, after 1808, the prohibition of the slave trade : the 
second touching slave representation ; and the third con- 
cerning the return of fugitive slaves. Now, we have heard a 
great deal of silly talk about " compromise'"' as if slavery was 
sacred ; whilst the truth is, there are but two inexorable " com- 
promises" or binding agreements in the whole Constitution. 

The one is, that each state shall for ever have equal repre- 
sentation in the senate : the other is, that the Constitution shall 
not be changed, except in the manner prescribed in the instru- 
ment itself. Every clause in that Constitution was a subject 
of " compromise," in one sense, and one sense only. That is, 
each member of the convention did not get all he wanted ; and 
had to submit to some things that he did not want. Such was 
the subject of Franklin's speech in convention. But with the 
two exceptions abovenamed, every clause in the Constitution 
stands upon eijual ground, subject to the judgment and de- 
liljerate will of subsequent generations. So far from slavery be- 
ing intended to be held 7nore sacred than any other rights, we 
have by us voluminous testimony, of the most jfrominent men 
of the North and South, looking forward to the day of uni- 
versal emancipation. When as the word slave was not men- 
tioned in that immortal instrument, so in this wide-spread na- 
tion there should not be a single soul who could not claim the 
Declaration of American Independence as his — and the Ameri- 
can Union as the palladium of freedom and equal rights. Our 
fathers saw that liberty and slavery could not co-exist — they 
believed and hojied that slavery would perish— they were mis- 
taken. Slavery now triumphs over even those liberties which 



248 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

we inherited under the British yoke ; taxation and representa- 
tion are yet unequal, and the Uberty of speech and the press, 
habeas corpus, and trial by jury are lost. The blood of '76 
was shed in vain ; the Americans are the slaves of slavery. 



" Turning Loose." 

"What," says the slaveholder, " shall the blacks be turned 
loose among us?" Permit me to ask, in the most childlike 
simplicity, if they are not loose already ? Men talk as if all the 
slaves were chained to a block, and some mad hand was about 
to sever the links, and let them go, like wild bears to ravage 
the land ! Now, all this bugaboo is founded upon tlie false 
idea that the aggregate power of the community is less than 
that of an individual slaveholder, which is absurd. By libera- 
tion we do not withdraw the force of legal restraint, but enlarge 
it ; because we bring a high moral power to sustain the civil arm 
in the execution of justice. The whole population of Kentucky, 
we take to be now, 840,000 : blacks, 180,000 ; for since the last 
census of '40, the whites must have increased, whilst the blacks, 
perhaps, have remained about stationary, owing to the Soutliern 
trade : that is 660,000 whites, to 180,000 blacks ; an excess of 
vv^iites over blacks, which would insure the whites absolute 
power of control, for ever, over the blacks, in case of liberation : 
more especially, as statistics of the North and South show that, 
upon the same basis, the black increases faster in slavery than 
in a state of freedom, anio?ig tvhites, tvhen all the stiinulants 
of acquiring position in soviet]/, and rising to eminetice, arc 
loithdrawn. To say then, that turning them loose, would en- 
danger the peace of society, is absolutely contrary to all expe- 
rience, as proven in the West Indies, and in the Northern 
states ; and contrary to every law of the human mind ; for it 
involves the gross absurdity, that a man would revenge a favor, 
or love his enemies, not as well as, but better than his friends ! 
We are not for turning any man loose, black or white ; but in 
case of liberation, we repeat, we would not only have tlie same 
civil power over the blacks, which we now have, but the super- 
added jjoiver of the combined moral power of the master and 



TURNING LOOSE. 249 

the slave ! The master strengthened in his position by a sense 
of being based upon justice, and the freedman constrained to 
quiet subjection to the laws, by every grateful affection of the 
lieart. But if we do not turn them " loose,^^ they will go on 
increasing, till they get in a majority ; when, at last, they \y\\\ 
turn themselves loose, for every law of nature, in time, vindi- 
cates itself. Man never has, and never will hold his fellow 
man in perpetual slavery. South Carolina, has gone on with 
the "let alone" system, and will it "right itself" policy, till she 
is on the very eve of utter ruin. A single citizen, from the 
state of Massachusetts, where Bunker Hill lifts its eternal 
granite brow to the eyes of equal freeman, throws the whole 
state into a consternation, greater than if an hundred thousand 
mail-clad men, with fire and sword, had landed on the shores 
of a just people. In spite of all the silly vapoiing of this un- 
hap[)y state, we are full of pity when we look upon such a 
'•sorry sight." They are now set about giving the slaves 
"moral and religious culture," most tame and impotent con- 
clusion: the only remedy is to slay them — remove them — or 
make them free. Kentuckians, you know the right, you feel 
the wrong : in South Carolina you see the end. 



A Small Business. 

G. D. and Robert Wickliffe seem to be contending which 
is the most ready to yield up the right of petition, one 
of the necessartj rights of a free people, and whicJi is solemnly 
guarantied to us by the Constitution, won by the blood of re- 
volutionary sires. It is enough to make the heart sick to see 
the once proud bird of Jove, the American Eagle, cowering in 
tiie very dust, beneath the cold, dark, and slimy folds of slavery ; 
this serpent, which now rears its defiant head over eighteen mil- 
lions of men ! Mr. D. is said to be a proud and honorable 
man — if so, the gods have punished us awfully for our crimes — 
when, whatever is noble, generous, and brave, must prostitute 
itself to base uses, utterly al)horrent to all that is demanded by 
the eternal laws of God and nature. 



250 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

E. Needham. 

The pro-slavery clique of Louisville, seems wonderfully in- 
dignant at the remarks of Mr. E. Needham, in the Cincinnati 
Liberty Convention. They seem more sensitive to words than 
to acts. The only question to be asked in this case, is, did 
Needham tell the truth ? If the crimes of which he spoke be 
true, every voter in the state of Kentucky is responsible for their 
perpetration. It is time that this solenm farce should cease. 
The truth is, no language can inisrepresent slavery. " Mob " 
Needham, indeed ! that is a double game. The slaveholders 
and their sycophants., will find that the free irhite laborers of 
this land, composing four-fifths of the popidation, at the lowest 
estimates, are not slaves. Slavery is doomed — it must die ! — 
the first act of violence in its cause, trill hasten its fate ! 



The Fourth of July. 

Some of the Southern people seem to wonder that this once 
glorious day has begun to be neglected by our people — in many 
places " not celebrated at all." Why should it be otherwise ; 
are we not, in the face of men, a living lie ? — shall we be so silly, 
as yearly to proclaim our own abandonment 7 We cannot lift 
up our hearts to God, in holy aspirations of gratitude and ex- 
pectanc}", because we have been partial in the appropriation of 
his mercies. We cannot come together, and exchange joyous 
congratulations, because selfishness is solitary in its manifesta- 
tions. The Fourth of July, 177G, saw us proclaiming liberty to 
all mankind — the Fourth of July, 1845, will look down upon 
the American people, as the sole propag-andists of slavery 
among men. Henceforth, till the rights of men be vindicated, 
let the fife be mute — the drum be nmffled— the American eagle 
wear mourning — let Christians pray that our holy religion be 
restored to its life-giving purity — our statesmen re-baptize them- 
selves in the exalted spirit of the patriotism of Washington, 
Adams, and Jefferson — let the people mourn their apostacy — • 
let the Fovnth of July be a day of fasting and prayer, that 
the nation be lustrated of its great and self-destroying sin. 



HEALY AND I. T. HART. . > 251 

We publish below the note of Mr. R. S. we repeat 
that we were taunted with the remark that R. S. lost his 
nomination for the legislature, (we had no reference to the 
fact of his being or not being upon " the convention") because 
he took the True American. His letter proves that he deserves 
his fate. AVe return Mr. S. his one dollar and twenty-five cents : 
the cause of human rights asks nothing but the free gift of true 
hearts. Our readers will, in reading this singular note, remem- 
ber the story of the wolf, the lamb, and the running stream — or 
the more marked history of a certain adjunct reformer of 
ancient times, who dipt his hand into the same dish with his 
liOrd in prosperous times — but who, in the day of trial, swore 
that he knew him not. Mr. S. is certainly in a " wrong posi- 
tionJ^ We told him in our prospectus, that we were no beg- 
gars, and therefore intended to speak the " truth ;" that those 
who had no sympathy with that, must go elsewhere. If 
Mr. S. liad unolitrusively withdrawn his name, like some five 
other subscribers, he would have spared us the mortification of 
saying that he imputes to us doctrines which he knows we do 
not advocate. 



LEXINGTON, TUESDAY, JULY 1. 
Healy and Hart. 

There are now in our city two artists, who would do honor 
to any country, and to any age. Healy, the painter, is in the 
meridian of his fame, patronized by the first monarch of Europe, 
in the very inner temple of tlie fine arts : Hart, the sculptor, a 
scholai- of nature, in the wild woods of the great West, follow- 
ing tlie unerring instinct of Genius, has proved himself, in our 
humble judgment, equal to his more favored rival. We do not 
liesitatc in saying, that Mr. Healy has taken far the best portrait 
bust of Clay, that we have yet seen : indeed, it seems to us, 
perfect of its kind. Mr. Clay is represented in a plain black 
dress coat, buff colored vest, dark blue stock, plain shirt bosom, 
with a full face, and sitting in an arm-chair : the back ground, 
like as in the picture of Jackson, of simple dusk color. Mr. 
Healy has not attempted an ambitious picture, as did Neagle ; 



252 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

but he has succeeded better in his design. He represents Mr. 
Clay in a cahii, easy, conversational face, and has succeeded to 
the hfe ; he has Mr. Clay's peculiarly penetrating eye, his color, 
and above all, his mouth, in that suspended state of the passions, 
when the great original, having spoken, awaits a reply, or is in 
the act of taking a pinch of snuff ! We conceive Mr. Healy to 
be very happy in the eye, giving it the luminous transparency 
of the real convex humors of the natural eye : the shaded side 
of the full face shines through inimitably. It has been, again 
and again, remarked by connoisseurs, that there have been more 
caricatures made of Mr. Clay than of any man living. This is 
true ; and it is because of the great mobility of Mr. Clay's fea- 
tures ; especially, are the muscles of the mouth, and chin, and 
cheek, very variant imder different emotions. The consequence 
is, that none but an artist of the first rank can take him at all. 
One who sets about mapping his face, is sure to make a carica- 
ture ; because the face cannot preserve life-like harmony, if a 
part of the features express one emotion, and the others another 
emotion. And, just here, is the reason, why we contend that 
no ideal picture has ever equalled one taken from nature : no 
man's genius is equal to the combination of beauties, taken from 
various models, into one harmonious whole. You may produce 
a seemingly faultless figure ; but at last, the soul, lohic/i reaches 
the soul, is loanting. Mr. Neagle attempted to give Mr. Clay, 
in a "heroic" mood, in an animated speaking mould: he did 
not, exactly, succeed ; the mouth is faulty : the upper lip looks 
as if the foreteeth were too long, and the lip stretched over 
them ; producing both an ungraceful, as well as an unintellectual 
expression. Now, Mr. Hart, in his bust, has succeeded in effect- 
ing that, in which Mr. Neagle failed to some extent. He has 
made a heroic bust of Clay, and yet a good likeness, which is 
the very essence of genius. He has attempted Mr. Clay, in a 
tumultuous mood of excited feelings ; the head is thrown up, 
aside, and slightly back, the eye full, the nostril expanded, the 
mouth widened and compressed, the brow elated, the cheek and 
chin in a tumultuous play — to be compared to nothing better 
than Hell-gate, in the Sound near New York, when wave seems 
to meet wave, and upper and under currents come together, in 
)nost inimitable confusion. If we were Mr. Clay, with his bold, 
impetuous, defiant eloquence, we should deem ourselves happy 
in going down to posterity in Hart's marble ; for fully are we 



EDGAR NEEDHAM. ■ 253 

convinced, that no one has, or ever will again succeed in taking 
him, at once heroic as a statue of Jupiter, and as true to hfe as 
is possible in the nature of things. The Kentucky Monumental 
Society, instead of building some huge, uncouth, Indian mound 
of stone, should send Hart to Europe, to take Clay's full 
statne in marble, which would be favoring the fine arts of the 
world, adding to our own reputation, and rewarding a true son 
of genius. 



Edgar Needham. 

We publish to-day the letter of this true man to his persecutors. 
He talks like one who had a soul in him to be saved, and after 
a manner that nuist win the admiration of all good men. Mr. 
Needham might well say to the newspaper press of Louisville, 
as the Satyr of the fable said to the n)an, '' Get you gone, for you 
blow hot and cold with the same breatlr." 

What are the circumstances ? Mr. Needham is a democrat, 
and believes in the political equality of man, and seeing that 
slavery not only deprived the blacks of Kentucky of this ; but 
that the system subjected the great mass of his fellow citizens 
to a necessary jwlitical and social inequality, he sets about, like 
an honest and sensible man, to reduce his faith to practice. 

All over the Union, yes, in our own state, the democrats have 
been abused for professing liberty and republicanism, but prac- 
tising servitude and despotism ; and yet, when a strong-hearted 
man undertakes to put himself in the true position which an 
enlightened conscience and this Pharasaical press have taught 
him ; these same men come down upon him with all the terrors 
of unmeasured denunciation. Mr. Needham, seeing that the 
statesmen and moralists of the state are callous and indifferent 
to all the accumulated curses and crimes of slavery, goes up to 
a convention of his fellow-citizens, of the same great repubhc, 
to devise the ways and means to free liis country from her great- 
est evil ; and for this, too, he is bitterly denounced ; although 
no one is so shameless as to deny his legitimate right so to act. 
But last year there was called a convention in " all the slave 
states" not only avowedly treasonable, in some places, but from 
the very face of the proposition itself, revolutionary and anti- 
patriotic ; and men went up to it from '• Old Kentucky," too : 



254 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

yet these same fastidious gentlemen were as mute as any suck- 
ing doves ! 

Mr. Needham says that the Kentuckians are as humane as 
any set of slaveholders in the world {and in this lie no doubt told 
nothing hut the simple truth\ but the sy stein of slavery is 
utterly ivrong ; because even here, Avithin his own knowledge, 
two horrid cases of barbarity, which he instances as having 
occurred in his own cit}^, have taken place ; and urges this as a 
cogent reason why the institution should be overturned. Will 
any man of common sense or common honesty deny the blame- 
less legitimacy of such a course ? Yet some of the sycophants 
of power pour forth the most scathing abuse, as if he were the 
author of the crimes alleged. Let justice be done, though the 
heavens fall. We say that Mr. Needham not only showed him- 
self a man of soul, but a moralist, loith a remnant of coinmon 
sense ; which seems to have departed utterly out of the heads 
of some professing to be the followers of God. They have found 
out some poor foreigner, untouched with the true genius of re- 
publicanism, who did this deed. Pray, Messieurs, who armed 
this man with the power to do it with impunity? Every voter 
in the state of Kentucky, these Pharasaical journalists among 
the rest ! Who put it in the power of any foreigner, or home 
villain, in the land, to do the same deed, or worse, over again, 
whenever it suits them ? These same journalists ! Who legalize 
a domestic slave trade, which is worse than burying a dead child 
without a shroud? These same journalists ! W^ho enable the 
heartless to separate husband and wife, father and child, sister 
and brother, lover and lover, with impunity, which is worse than 
burying a child without a shroud ? These same journalists ! 
Who take the care of the intellectual and moral discipline of 
the child, generally to the utter neglect of both, out of the con- 
trol of parents, a thing worse than burying a babe without a 
shroud ? These same journalists ! Who allow the master to 
deny the slave the selection of his own physician, and enable 
some horrid quack to pour down unmeasured quantities of calo- 
mel into the throats of unresisting victims? These same 
journalists ! 

Who take the Bible, if it be the only means of the salvation 
of the souls of men, from the hands of a great portion of the 
blacks — destroying not the body, but the soul— a thing worse 
than burying a child without a shroud ? These same journal- 



EDGAR N'EEDHAM, 255 

ists ! Who encourage habitual prostitution of both sexes by de- 
nying to slaves legal marriage — a thing worse than burying a 
child without a shroud ? These same journalists ! Who by 
the unlimited control of the master over the slave, by the thou- 
sand enforcements short of legal criminality, has the virtue of 
every female in his power, in the eye of common sense and of 
God — has given the lustful the power of rape upon every female 
slave — a thing worse than burying a child without a shroud J 
These same journalists ! Who disarms the black, and gives the 
master the power, by excluding negro testimony, of life and 
death over his fellow man — a thing woise than burying a child 
without a shroud ? These same journalists ! Who has given 
the lie to the immortal declaration of independence, that all 
men are " born free and equal, and entitled to life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness " — a thing infinitely worse than bury- 
ing a child without a shroud 7 These same journalists ! What 
say you, gentlemen; guilty, or not? Are you not ashamed of 
yoiu'selves, then, to come up in full pack, with thundering tones, 
and blood-thirsty tongues, after one poor little mechanic and 
democrat, who mustered up soul enough to say, this slave sys- 
tem is a horrid affair, when it puts it in the power of one villaui, 
in the midst of Kentuckians, to bury a miserable, unclad child 
without shroud or coffin? Do you understand us? We say 
that Needham spoke the truth, and spoke it like a man, and, if 
Kentuckians are men^ he sliall be upheld^ triumphantly, Jion- 
orahly upheld ! If he falls, truth falls with him ! If he is dis- 
lionored, then are Washington, and Adams, and Franklin, and 
Jederson, and Madison, and Sherman, and Morris, and a host 
of names, which the world deemed illustrious, damned for ever ! 
If he is wrong, the Declaration of T6 cannot be right ! If he 
is crushed, the jiillars of the Constitution go down with him ! If 
lie has sinned, tlien is Christianity a miserable fable! If he 
dies, justice dies with him ! If he is lost, let him perish, with 
the bitter yet neutralizing reflection, that he leaves a home, 
unworthy of his soul's expansive aspirations — that he quits a 
world not worth living for ! It cannot be ! We regard these as 
but the spasmodic grimaces of the wounded monster. Slavery 
cannot he defended : it must be abandoned ; it is doomed ! 
It must die ! 



256 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

Six hundred thousand Free White Laborers of 
Kentucky — Men, Women, and Children. 

If slavery deprives us of political and social equality ; if it 
impoverishes us by the ruinous competition of unpaid wages ; 
if it fails to educate our children, and places large farms be- 
tween us, so that we can't get our own schools ; if it degrades 
labor, so that slaveholders rank us below slaves — some of whom 
play idlers in the houses of the rich^f, above all, after suffer- 
ing all these curses, we and ours are to be involved in the com- 
mon ruin, which as sure as fate awaits the catastrophe which 
follows the violation of the laws of God and nature — shall we 
any longer support it, by our countenance, or our votes ? No ! 
Let lis say, with one loud and unanimous voice, slavery shall 
die ! and the Heavens and the earth shall respond, amen ! 



Liberty? — or Slavery? 

The Governor of South Carolina, in his correspondence with 
the venerable Thomas Clarkson, the pioneer of British emanci- 
pation, takes McDuffie's ground, that slavery is the corner-stone 
of liberty ! How ? by excluding '■'jioor white folks " from pow- 
er in the government ! This head of the " dcmocraci/,'^ also de- 
nies and ridicules the declaration of American independence ! 
Democrats, all over the Union, do you hear ? Whigs, North 
and South, do you hear ? Americans, awake ! the time has 
come; take your ground. Liberty? or Slavery? ^'Under 
which king-, Bezonian 7 speak or die .'" 



Non-resistance. — Our first number. — The Northern 
Press. 

Whilst we have the greatest respect for non-resistants, we beg 
leave to think and act for ourselves. If Washington and his 
compatriots had relied upon " moral porver" only, the paw of 
the huo-e lion of Britannia would be now quietly resting upon 



MORAL POWER. 257 

the necks of the American people. If non-resistance be right, 
then is self-defence in individuals and societies wrong; and the 
walls of every penitentiary in the Union ought to be knocked 
down, and the inmates turned loose to ravage the land with im- 
punity. We say, that when society fails to j)rotect us, we are 
authorized by the laws of God and nature to defend ourselves ; 
based upon the right, 'Hhe pistol and Bowie knife" are to us as 
sacred as the gown and the pulpit ; and the Omnipotent God of 
battles is our hope and trust for victorious vindication. "Moral 
power" is much ; with great, good, true-souled men, it is strong- 
er than the bayonet ! but with the cowardly and the debased it 
is an " unknown God." Experience teaches us, common sense 
teaches us, virtue teaches us, justice teaches us, the right teaches 
us, instinct teaches us, religion teaches us, that it loses none of 
its force by being backed with " cold steel and the flashing 
blade," "the pistol and the Bowie knife." Without these, "mo- 
ral power" has been and will be again, ridden on a rail; it will 
be graced with a plumigerous coat of less enviable colors than 
that of Joseph of old, and not so easily torn off! Moral power 
stands by and sees men slain in Yicksburg ; Catholic churches 
plundered in Massachusetts ; good citizens murdered in the de- 
fence of the laws in Philadelphia ; public meetings broken up 
in New York ; the envoys of Massachusetts mobbed in the 
South ; United States citizens imprisoned in Charleston and 
New Orleans ; men hung to the limbs of trees in the Southern 
states for exercising the " liberty of speech ;" Lovejoy murdered 
in Ilhnois ; Joe Smith assassinated in the sanctuary of the law. 
She stood by in Paris, during the French revolution, and saw 
the peasant and the prince, male and female, " the young, the 
beautiful, the brave," brought to the block. She looked coldly 
on when Christ himself was crucified in Judea ! We say, then, 
she is powerless of herself. Meet mobs with "moral power!" 
not so thought the "httle corporal" of Corsica; they are to be 
met (when will the American people learn it ?) with " round and 
grape — to be answered by Shrapnel and Congreve ; to be dis- 
cussed in hollow squares, and refuted by battalions four deep." 
Yes, they must be met with "cold steel" and ball, the "pistol, 
and Bowie knife," and subterranean batteries, for they will never 
come to their senses while the ground is firm beneath their feet ! 
Let us hear no more of this sickly cant, and mawkish sensibili- 
ty. People at home and abroad greatly underrate Kentuckians 
17 



258 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

if they suppose them capable of lawless outbreaks; ihe few as- 
sassi7is, who infest the best of communities, we thoroughly un- 
derstand ; and we must be allowed to deal with them as they 
deserve, and after our oum maruier* 



Foster's Power Press. 

We invite our pro-slavery friends — for we are the enemies of 
slavery, not of slaveholders — to come and see this beautiful 
piece of mechanism, the product oi free labor. If any man is 
proud of mental achievement let him look on this and reflect 
that slavery deprives us of such as these. If any one is covet- 
ous of wealth, let him see this, and reflect that slavery has sent 
millions of our money to free states, to purchase machinery, 
that ought to have been made at home. If any body is fond of 
the " toiling millions," let him show his faith by his woiks, and 
see to it that our own money shall be spent among our own 
"people." Let those men who have spent the people's school 
fund in building locks, and dams, and turnpike roads, over 
which there is nothing to be carried, remember that there are 
thousands of Fosters in Kentucky, who for the want of proper 
education and encouragement, are lost to the world. First 
''make your articles of commerce, and then the means of convey- 
ance. Those who take pride in large cities, ask yourselves why 
we have been compelled to send sixteen hundred dollars from 
Lexington, the older, to Cincinnati, the younger city, for a press 
and printing materials. Those farmers who want home mar- 
kets and high prices, can know why their beef and pork and 
other things, have to be carried to distant aitd uncertain mar- 
kets. Where the manufacturing mouths are, there is the farm- 
er's market also. 

If pious parents are grieved that their sons or daughters are 
spendthrifts and profligates, how can they blame any one but 
themselves^/^Iake labor free and you make it honorable. 
How many men are starving at the desk, at the bar, at the 
counter, who, like Foster, might have been useful to themselves, 
and an honor to their country, if slavery had not made manual 
labor " unfashionable. ^1/ 

* I believe now, as ever, that had I not fallen sick, I never would have been 
mobbed. C. 1848. 



RIGHT OF SEARCH.— SLAVE TRADE. 259 

If any man deems us a fanatic, let him look upon this press, 
the result oifree labor : the source of light, liberty, civihzation, 
and religion, and then ask his own secret emotions, if he should 
be regarded as an enemy to his country, who w^ould wish that 
Lexington, too, might make these. 

Above all, if there is any father of ten sons, so unfortunate as 
to have one poor, miserable, sun-burnt, foxy-headed negro, let 
him come and see our press, and go with us, and make Ken- 
tucky yree. 



LEXINGTON, TUESDAY, JULY 8. 

The Right of Search — The Slave Trade. 

In saying that the American people have become the sole 
propagandists of slavery among men, we wish, if possible, to 
arouse the public to the fact, in order, if we are not dead to our 
peculiar glory of being the " defenders of liberty," that we may 
retrace our steps, before it is for ever too late. We do not pro- 
pose, in this article, to notice the supremacy which the slave 
power has acquired since the formation of the Constitution, con- 
trary to the expectations and wishes of its illustrious founders, 
in the home administration^how it has monopolized all the 
offices of honor and profit — in the civil administration — in the 
army, and in the navy ; this would require more space than a 
newspaper article would allow. We shall therefore confine 
ourselves, mainl}' now, to our foreign policy. Up to the year 
1845, says the Foreign Quarterly Review, April No., 1845, the 
right of belligerents to search neutral vessels " was not ques- 
tioned." Lord Stowell sums up the whole international law 
upon the subject, by these propositions : 

J. " That the right of visiting and searching merchant ships 
upon the high seas, and not merely their papers, but their car- 
goes, M'hatevcr be the ship, its cargo, or its destiny, is an incon- 
testible right of the lawfully commissioned cruisers of every bel- 
ligerent nation. 

II. " That the sovereign of the neutral country cannot, consist- 
ently with the law of nations, oppose this right of search. 

III. " That the penalty of opposing this right of search, is the 



260 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

confiscation of property so withheld from visitation." The 
Quarterly goes on to say, that, this doctrine is sustained by 
Byukershoek, Vattel, Voet, Zuarias, Soccaenius, and Abreu, 
and is also set forth in " II consolato del Mare." Bynkershoek 
says, " Non ex fallaci forte aplustri, sed ex ipsis instruraentis in 
navi repertis constare oportet navem amicam esse. Si id con- 
stet dimittara : si hostilem esse constiteret occupabo. duod si 
liceat, ut omni jure licet et perpetuo observatur, hcebit quoque 
instrumenta quae ad rnerces pertinet excutere et inde discere si 
quae hostium bona in navi lateant."* 

Vattel admits (Que. Pub. Jur : Vattel, Droit des Gens, lib. II.,- 
cb. 7, p. 114), that without searching neutral ships at sea, the 
commerce of contraband goods cannot be prevented. He says 
also : '• Si Ton trouve sur un vaisseau neutre des effets appar- 
tenants aux ennemis, on s'en saisit par le droit d© la guerre."t 

Valin, a French lawyer of European reputation in his " Traite 
des Prises," justifies the French ordinances, by which both 
ships and cargo are subject to confiscation, if the smallest part 
of the lading belonged to the enemy, for, he observes :— Par- 
ceque de maniere ou d'autre c'est favoriser le commerce de 
I'ennemi et faciliterle transport de sesdenreeset marchandises ; 
ce qui ne pent s'accorder avec les traites, d'alliance ou de 
neutralite."i Monsieur Hubner, he adds : " entrepend de prou- 
ver fort serieusment que le pavilion neutre couvre toute la car- 
gaison quoiqu'elle appartient a I'ennemi. Mais cet autenr 
est absolument decide pour les neutres, et semble n'avoir ecrit 
que pour plaider leur cause. II pose d'abord ses principes qu' 
il donne pour constants, puis il en tire les consequences qui lui 
convient. Cette methode est fort commode."§ 



* " Not from the fallacious chance of the Flag, but from the papers found in 
the ship, it ought to appear that the ghip is a friend (a neutral). If this ap- 
pears, I dismiss it, if it turns out an enemy, I occupy it. If which act is 
allowed, as it is allowed and always observed, there also follows the right of 
searching the articles of trade, and thus learn if any of the goods of the enemy 
(articles of contraband) should lie concealed in the ship." 

t " If one finds upon a neutral vessel goods belonging to the enemy, they are 
seized by the right of war." 

t " Because it is to some extent favoring the commerce of the enemy and 
facilitating the transportation of his goods and merchandise; which is not in 
accordance with treaties of alliance or neutrality." 

§ " Undertakes to prove very seriously, that the neutral flag covers all the 
cargo, although it belongs to the enemy. But that author is absolutely on the 



THE RIGHT OF SEARCH. 261 

The learned reviewer then goes on to prove incontestibly that 
the French courts sustained, under the old regime, most fully 
the propositions laid down by Lord Stowell ; and concludes his 
argument by a cjuotation from the Spanish of Abreu, upon the 
sul3Ject of blockade and the rights of neutrals, which we omit. 
Now, it is plain that " the right of search or visit" was the ad- 
mitted law of nations up to the time of the declaration of war 
against England, in 1812. It was not the right of search 
against which the American people battled. Let us go back a 
little. Irj May, 1806, England declared the coast of France 
and her allies blockaded from Brest to the mouth of the Elbe. 
The error here was, declaring blockade tcithout sufficient power 
of enforcement. We, as neutrals, were carrying on a profitable 
trade with the continent, and England, through envy or an 
arrogant supremacy, determined to break it up. Bonaparte 
immediately issued his celebrated Berlin decree, declaring the 
British Isles in blockade ; then followed, in 1807, the orders in 
council of Great Britain, declaring all France in blockade, and 
requiring all ships to touch at British ports and pay duties be- 
fore they would be allowed to enter French ports. Napoleon 
retorts from Milan that the British Isles are in blockade, and 
that all neutrals trading with them, or allowing her i?n])osts, 
are '^denationalized " and confiscate: following this up with his 
tremendous continental system that all British goods even on 
land are " contrahandP The United States, thus between two 
fires was literally crushed. She first tried the embargo — then 
protestations and diplomacy — and at last appealed to arms. 
" Millions for defence — not a cent for tribute," was the war-cry : 
" Free trade and sailors' rights." Not a word denying the right 
of " visit" was uttered in the whole lengthy correspondence 
and state papers between the United States, and France, and 
England, until the usurpations of England drove us and the 
Emperor to take ground, at last, that the /?<7o- covered ihe goods 
— even to the other extreme, that neutral goods under the ene- 
my's flag were confiscate! Amer. State papers, volume 8, 
1810-12. In 1813, after war was declared against England, 
Mr. Clay, on the New Army Bill, said in the House of Repre- 

side of neutrals, and seems to have written for no other purpose than to pleud 
their cause. He first lays down his principles, which he takes for granted, 
then ho draws from them whatever deductions suit him. That method is very 
convenient." 



262 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

sentatives, "As to myself, I have no hesitation in saying-, that 
I have ahcays considered the impressment of American sea- 
m,en as much the most serious aggression.^^ This was said 
by the leader of the war party, and after the odious orders in 
council were rescinded. England denied the right of denatu- 
rahzation — we defended it. England allowed aliens to enlist 
in her men-of-war — we, none but citizens. England, after 
" two years' enlistment," extended to aliens the protection of her 
flag — we did not. England itnpresscd seamen — we did not. 
England returned deserters from our ships-of-war, as a matter 
of grace, because more deserted from her than from us — we re- 
fused, on the ground of criminality, to return deserters from 
British ships, »for, by the laws of nations, we are not bound 
to return fugitives from justice, except by treaty. England re- 
fused to return neutrals from our merchantmen — we only 
claimed the right to protect our own citizens. Now in all these 
points of controversy, the right of search does not once come 
up. It was because England seized upon naturalized Ameri- 
can citizens, under pretence that they were British subjects, 
that we fought. It was because England seized on and im- 
pressed native horn Americans, that we took up arms, and pro- 
claimed, " free trade and sailors' rights." It was only when they 
violated, under pretence of search, the most sacred rights of 
nations and individuals, and when it was proposed to give our 
citizens certificates as a mark of distinction from British men, 
that Mr. Clay said, " The colors that float from the mast-head 
should be the credentials of our seamen." The battle was 
fought — the war ended — peace made — England ceased to im- 
press — and we ceased to complain ! the law of nations — the 
" right of search" remaining just where it was before. Subse- 
quently the slave trade is made between the principal jxiwers of 
Europe, including the United States, piracy. Great Britain, 
with a consistent philanthropy, moved by the horrors of this 
" infernal traffic," establishes a navy at the cost of millions of 
money to suppress it : she liberates, at great expense and much 
self-sacrifice, her own slaves in her own colonies, and abolishes 
slavery as far as it lies in her power, throughout her vast domain. 
But the people of Washington, forgetting the faith of our fore- 
fathers, array themselves under the slave banner — concentrate 
their power at home, in the trade which they denounce abroad. 
Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, New Jersey, and Delaware, and 



THE RIGHT OF SEARCH. 263 

Tennessee, and Missouri, monopolize the trade which was 
world-wide when carried on from Congo, Abyssinia, and Guinea, 
till the whole cotton and rice and sugar country is filled with Ame- 
rican slaves. What next ? Is she still of the opinion of our ances- 
tors, that it is an '• accursed traffic," which, after 1808, was to be 
abolished 1 Does she still regard slavery as an evil, but a 7ie- 
cessary evil, inflicted on us by British tyranny ? No, slavery 
has suddenly come to be the '• corner-stone of republicanism — 
the basis of liberty." A systematic attack is made upon the 
free labor of the country, all the measures of national policy are 
turned to prostrate the free spirits of the republic, and sustain 
the slave power. But the North is rapidly growing upon the 
South — -nature's ever victorious laws triumphing over govern- 
mental tyranny— something must be done ! Well, Louisiana 
and Florida, foreign territory is added : " the area of freeedom," 
in opposition to the express language and spirit of the national 
Union is spread over four new states : the free, of course being 
taxed to pay for their own enslavement ! Twenty-five years 
pass on, and once more free labor comes up in the race and 
threatens supremacy. The cry goes out, " we must have more 
new slaves states to counterbalance the power of the free Norths 
The eyes of the slave power are fixed upon Texas, the legal 
and sacredly admitted possession of a friendly republic. We 
ofler them again and again through agents of the slave party, 
unknown to the great American public, millions of money. 
Mexico, seeing no alternative but the integrity of her whole em- 
pire, or ultimate subjection by this "tumultuary people," ab- 
solutely refuses to sell out. Persons high in the confidence of 
the President of the U. S., emigrate to Texas — she is peopled by 
American citizens. Liberty is proclaimed by Mexico to all her 
inhabitants. Forthwith the standard of rebellion is raised ; 
from all parts of the Union organized corps of armed men, with 
colors flying and music playing, hurry to the rescue ; in dis- 
graceful contrast to the Canadian revolt, troops are sent by An- 
drew Jackson, Houston's godfather, " into " the borders of a 
power at peace with us, not to prevent war, but with our own 
U. S. soldiers to achieve conquest. The banner inscribed with 
" God and Liberty " sinks into the dust, and the black piratical 
flag of " perpetual slavery " waves triumphant over the land of 
the once free ! In the meantime, England, taking the lead in 
the afiairs of nations, after having overthrown Napoleon at 



284 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

Waterloo, and established the liberties of Europe, forms the 
treaties of 1831 and 1833, with the first rate powers for the suppres- 
sion of the slave trade, and the better vindication of the natural 
rights of men. In 1840, she projects a treaty with Russia, 
Prussia, Austria and France, with a view to lead the United 
States into a cordial sympathy in the suppression of the slave 
trade. In 1841, it is signed at London by the five powers. In 
the mean time, subsequent to the projection, and before the 
signing of the treaty by the French Minister, M. Thiers medi- 
tates the extension of the French power over the Levant and 
Asia Minor, by creating a revolt in Egypt, and placing her tool, 
Mohammed Ali, in power, and by conquest overthrowing the 
Ottoman empire. M. Guizot, the Minister -at St. James, is out- 
witted; Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Great Britain, form in 
July, '40, the Quadruple Alliance, and before the French had 
time to concentrate their measures. Lord Palmerston had Bairout 
bombarded, and the Sultan established in his independence be- 
yond the power of change. The American government, ever 
watchful of the British nation, as the enemy of slavery, was not 
an uninterested observer of these various events. Mr. Lewis 
Cass, our Minister at Paris, seeing that the time approached 
when, out oi many rivals, choice was to be made for tlie Presi- 
dency very soon, must needs bow down to the slave power at 
home, and ingratiate himself into their good graces, as the only 
means of riding into power ! Taking advantage of the soreness 
of the French nation, from their defeat on the Turkish ques- 
tion, he ventures upon the bold and unusual plan of appealing 
from the throne to the people — committing an offence for which 
citizen Genet was justly, in times past, driven from the United 
States. In 1841, so soon as the treaty was formally signed by the 
four powers, he denounced it as a trap set l)y England to usurp 
the dominion of the seas. The opposition in the Chambers play 
the same chord — the deputies are furious — the Ministry is over- 
awed, and the treaty falls. The right of search in the slaying 
of men loas all right, hut in saving men from death and sla- 
very teas horribly ivrong ! 

Thus was the " right of search" lugged in and repudiated to 
the all possible ruin of two continents, Africa and America. 
England takes the alarm ; Lord Aberdeen, the Minister of Fo- 
reign AflTairs, sends Lord Ashburton (the whig ministry, under 
Melbourne, being overthrown in England) to Washington to 



THE RIGHT OE SEARCH. 265 

settle the old controversy with the United States about the 
Maine houndary ! Mr. Webster, with that great ability which 
ever characterizes his diplomatic intercourse, whilst on the one 
hand, he gives the Michigan General a lasting rap over the 
knuckles for his officiousness, cares not to stem the deep current 
of slaveocratic feeling which had insidiously mixed up the sa- 
cred rights of 1812 with the '• right of visit," and the slave 
trade. He argues, conviyices, and forms the treaty of Wash- 
ington, l)y which a double navy is kept on the African shore to 
touch hats at each other, whilst any slave trader may run up 
the flag of either nation, and set them both at defiance ! In the 
mean time Iowa becomes adolescent ; she and her young sisters 
are about demanding admittance to sovereignty and equal re- 
presentation in the Senate ; they must be met by the slave 
power. Florida, although the Indians have been whipt out at 
the rate of forty million dollars, again paid by the/ree for their 
own enslavement, does not populate fast enough. What must 
be done? Van Buren is a "Northern man with Southern prin- 
ciples," but unhaf)pily he has committed himself, not against 
Texas, oh, no ! but against the unjust and illegal acquisition 
of it ! He is the favorite of his party — the instructed choice of 
the American Democracy ; the case is stringent; it admits of no 
delay ; Texas must come in, right or tvrotig ; Van Buren is 
thrown overboard ! Mr. Cass make* a most profound bow, 
" Gentlemen, I broke up the quintuple treaty — right or u'ro)ig, 
I am your man." A gallant man, this Cass !— strong in the 
field, and in the council ! — but — but — he is too far North. 
" Texas must come in, with or without the Union," In the lat- 
ter alternative he would not answer ! Mr. Clay is a great and 
strong man : but he loves the Constitution ; " do you love 
slavery better?" " No ! but only less." For the first time in his 
life he falters. He is lost ! Mr. James K. Polk is for it right 
or rcroug ; and if the worst comes to the worst, South of Mason 
and Dixon's line — enough; he is elected ! By a joint resolu- 
tion of the two houses of Congress, Texas is annexed ; the Con- 
stitution is once more trampled in the dust ; the " area of free- 
dom is extended over territory forty times as large as Massa- 
chusetts ; the balance of power is secured to the slave party; 
new markets are opened for the home slave trade, and the Ame- 
rican people have become the sole propagandists of slavery 
amonff men ! 



266 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

Bustles. 

A writer in a Boston paper, undertakes to deter the lovely 
sex from the use of tliese unseemly enlargements, by the terrors 
of damnation, as being a trenchant attack upon the virtue of 
Tnen. This would-be moralist is very wide of the mark, in his 
treatment of this epidemic disease. He knows nothing of 
"horse flesh," or of woman flesh. We tell him, if it be true 
that huge bustles too warmly move the blood of a man, and the 
fact should come to the knowledge of the fair devils, our cause 
is lost ! Now, if we know any thing at all, it is all about these 
same dear creatures ; upon whom. Burns swears, nature would 
not try her " 'prentice hand." And we tell them, that if they 
would " put us as mad as a hare," they must preserve a due pro- 
portion between the breadth of the shoulders and the plumige- 
rous developments. Say, for instance, as sixteen is to eighteen, 
never more, for if they cannot fall within these lines, we pity 
them, for they must be of the Flanders breed, and are surely 
wanting in mettle, if not in bottom. Now the truth is, we hold 
it to be consistent with nature, and the highest morality, for 
every woman to make herself as lovely as possible in our eyes ; 
we speak now with regard to physical beauty ; and at this, every 
woman of sense and feeling does and ought to aim. When they 
go into these extravagances of fashion, which are so annoying 
to men of true taste and exquisite susceptibility, it arises from 
sheer ignorance of natural laws, and a want of tact in dress. 

Some poetaster of the kid glove, white cravat, and poodle ge- 
nus, in some Magazine story, tells of a heroine with an infinite- 
ly small ivaist. Forthwith the silly girl plies herself with silk 
cord and canvas, till a man would sooner put his arms around 
a lamp post, than one of these unpliant, mummy-wrapt sticks. 
The ribs may interlock, the skin lose all its vitality, tiie limbs 
all their elasticity and freedom of motion ; the yellows, blue-de- 
vils, and death, may threaten the disgusting victim, and still 
the waist is not as small as Miss Sophronisba Waspandbottle's. 
Well, the power of contrast must be invoked to the aid of com- 
pression and exhaustion ; the dealers in raw-cotton, sail-duck, 
feathers, and wheat-bran, are patronized, till at last, a church 
door is too small for our anti-Venus di Medicis. Miss Sophro- 
nisba Waspandbottle is thrown entirely into the shade, and our 
friend in Boston, in horror and despair, denounces eternal dam- 



BUSTLES. 267 

nation against the monster ! Now the best cure for all this, is 
to import into this land — heathen in all things else but this — 
some of the best models of beautiful sculpture. Let our girls 
see that small waists are not a-la-mode ; au fait ; as they say 
in Arkansas, "Me thing :" and that a consistent harmony is to 
be preserved in all the members. This can best be obtained by 
free exercise and household duties, exercising the arms, the 
chest, the legs, the w'hole person, in the freest clothing possible ; 
and if they are at last compelled to resort to dress, to cover over 
defects, or heighten beauties, they will be wise if they study the 
natural form, and its imperceptible departure from straight lines. 
At all events, let them never forget, that modesty, in dress and 
manner, is the divinity, at last, which men adore ; so that if 
there be any luckless lassie destitute of this, which all love 
most in wife or mistress, let her be at least apiJarently miserly 
in the display of her most valued treasures ; moderat-e in her 
stride, and " slow to anger," for the intellectual poet of the age, 
represents her, whom he would paint in most captivating atti- 
tude, " saying she would not consent — consented ! " 



LEXINGTON, TUESDAY, JULY 15. 

Let us Agree to Differ. 

Friends of emancipation, we have the power to free ourselves 
from the accumulated curses of slavery. Interest, pride, self- 
respect, justice, religion, mercy, call upon us to exercise it. Let 
all agree that slavery shall fall ! About the details let 
us agree to differ. You have one opinion about the time, 
the mode, and the reasons of emancipation ; we another ; and 
our neighbor a third. What does common sense tell us? Submit 
our several views to the will of the majority. We pray you not 
to let us quarrel among ourselves — divide, and be crushed ! 
When we meet iy convention all our differences of opinion can 
be settled in an hour. Does one man say that male-and female 
shall be free on a certain day : well and good : if not, vote it 
down. Does one man say liberate only the females : well and 
good : if not, vote it down. Does one man say buy all the 



268 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

females, and thus have the next generation free : well and good : 
if not, vote it down. Does one man say buy, and emancipate 
on the soil, for few would be left unsold, and wise policy does 
not dictate that one hundred and eighty thousand laborers should 
be expelled at once : well and good : if not, vote it down. Does 
one man say buy, liberate, and colonize : well and good : if not, 
vote it down. Is any other mode of emancipation, any other 
means of freeing us from the worst of all evils known to men, 
absolute slavery, proposed, which better suits the friends of 
liberty : well and good : let that be adopted, and all the others 
be voted down. We have now laid doum ground broad enough 
for every statesman, moralist, and Christian, in the state of 
Kentucky, in favor op freedom, to stand upon : the time 
has come : the question is Tnade : liberty, or slavery 7 



Free Laborers of Kentucky. 

For half a century we have appealed in vain to the magna- 
nimity of the slaveholders to have some little regard for our 
welfare ; to remember that \ve too have bodies to be fed, and 
clothed, and sheltered, minds to be educated, and souls to be 
saved. 

When a journe3aiian printer underworks the usual rates he 
is considered an enemy to the balance of the fraternity, and is 
called a " ra^." Now the slaveholders have ratted us with 
the one hundred and eighty thousand slaves till forbearance 
longer on our part has become criminal. They have ratted us 
till we are unable to supply ourselves with the ordinary comforts 
of a laborer's life. They have ratted us out of the social circle. 
They have ratted us out of the means of making our own 
schools. Twice have common school funds been provided for 
our education ; and twice have they ratted us out of them ! 
They have ratted us out of churches, by the same means, and 
the opportunities of religious worship. They have ratted us 
out of the press. They have ratted us out <jf the legislature. 
They have.r«^^ef/ us out of all the offices of honor and profit. 
Judges, sheriffs, clerks, state officers, county court judges — all — 
all are slaveholders ! They have ratted us into a scale inferior 
to the slave : yes, in this state, in South Carolina, and other 



A LAY SERMON. 269 

slave slates, you have seen it in print, how ihey have added 
insult to injury, by calling us slaves, and '■ white negroes." 
What words can we use, to arouse you to a sense of our deep 
and damning degradation ! Men, we have one remaining, 
untried, omnipotent, power oi freemen left — the ballot-box : yes, 
thank God, we can yet vote ! Our wives, our sisters, our chil- 
dren, raise their imploring eyes to us ; save us from this over- 
whelming ignominy — this insufferable woe ; place us upon that 
equality for which our fathers bled and died. Come, if we are 
not worse than brutish beasts, let us but speak the word, and 
slavery shall die ! 



The Alabama Preacher and a Lay Sermon. 

An Alabama preacher has been abusing us, and invoking the 
Kentuckians to mob us. We say nothing now of the imperti- 
nent intermeddling with our "peculiar state institutions," which 
this reverend cut-throat has been denouncing in " Northern 
Abolitionists," we merely wish to inform liim, that he may play 
the assassin in the Christian land of Alal)ama, but that we Ken- 
tuckians only go in for a " free fight," and are heathen enough 
to disgrace native grown hemp, by stopping the nasal twang of 
any sniffling hypocrite, who in "Kendall green," or "saintly 
black," should attempt anything else than " an open ring, and 
a fair shake." Should this bellicose parson stray off this far 
from his flock, the chances are more in favor of our making a 
scapegoat of him, than of his making a slain lamb of us. Now, 
let Kentuckians stand aside — take no offence, it is to the Ala- 
bamians that we preach our sermon. One man does not see the 
injustice of slavery ; he has not reflected upon general princi- 
ples ; he has from this relation many immediate advantages to 
himself ; he has heard that the Bible sanctions slavery — that 
many men deemed pure patriots, in days past, held slaves ; he 
has hardened his heart, and goes in blindly for perpetual slavery. 
This man is no hypocrite, yet in the eyes of God he is guilty. 
Nature avenges her violated laws, a thousand evils of unknown 
cause come upon him and his, in life, and upon his descendants, 
perhaps insurrection and death! Another man knows that 
slavery is wrong— a violation of natural right, and in opposition 



270 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

to the, aggregate economical progress of the commonwealth ; 
he sees that it is a hbel upon our system of professed repubh- 
canism ; he feels that it is in opposition to every principle of 
Christianity ; he treats with due contempt the idea of a " mark " 
of slavery having been put upon the African, seeing that hiS' 
tory proves, without controversy, that the great majority of 
slaves, in all ages, have been whites ; he gives you the wink, 
and tells you frankly that he loves power. This man is no 
hypocrite, and if God ever looks upon sin with the least degree 
of allowance, he slips him into some comfortable quarters in the 
world to come. For this slaveholder is a humane master, a 
good companion, a true friend, and has many other redeeming 
virtues. Here is one who feels the wrong — a man of heart and 
much sensibility, a lover of virtue, in the main a good man ; he 
is a lawyer, a physician, a minister of the gospel, a mechanic, 
a tenant at will, a dependent laborer ; his bread depends upon 
slaveholders ; " the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." We 
have no reproaches for such men ; they are on the side of the 
right at heart ; they will be felt in time ; they are more sinned 
against than sinning ; the fault and the atonement are one. 
There is another class of men who know that slavery cannot 
be justified ; they feel as full of guilt as a sponge is of water ; 
they are desperately in love with republicanism and equality — 
are the people's men ; their tastes degrade them to seek illicit 
commerce with the negro ; yet they proclaim from the house- 
tops most fastidious horror against amalgamation. For the 
first time in their lives they take up the Bible and affect to find 
that they are doing God's service in enslaving the " children of 
Ham." They are the foes of the freedom of the press — the 
hberty of speech ; if they could muster one hundred men to one, . 
they would Lynch you ; whenever it suits their purposes they 
are slave traders, and for a good price have no objection to sell- 
ing their own children ; if you pull their noses, they go home 
and quarrel with their wives, and whip their slaves for revenge. 
These are no hypocrites ; they do not reverence virtue enough 
to affect it — vice they set up for virtue ; these men are simply 
villains. 'I'tiere is a class worse than this — than all the others 
— having all the vices of each, and the virtues of none. Among 
these is the Alabama preacher : they are the professed guardians 
of the morals of men — -the representatives on earth of the holy, 
sin-hating God ; they shed crocodile tears over the miseries of 



A LAY SERMON. 271 

men, whilst they waste the body and soul, aijd gloat on the 
groans, the crushed affections, the deluded hopes, the despair, 
and the temporal and eternal damnation of immortal spirits. 
We speak not in a thoughtless vindictive tone, but as the claims 
of outraged humanity enforce us. They are the robbers of the 
poor, icould be seducers of women, betrayers of friends, the 
overliearing contemners of the humble sons of fortune, the 
sycophants of power ; " they bend the supple hinges of the knee 
that thrift may follow fawning ; " nothing but abject and craven 
fear restrain them from highway robbery and secret murder. 
Murrel, in comparison, was a Christian and an honorable man. 
Like the veiled Prophet of Korassan, they wear a silver veiled 
visage over secret features of disgusting horror and fiendish 
malice : these men justify slavery from the Bible, and prosti- 
tute to base uses of crime and woe the sanctity of the pure and 
living God. Against these the Savior of men, full of patience, 
and charity, and long sufferance, uncomplaining at all times, 
though great drops of blood stood upon his sacred and lowly 
brow, in the mighty instinct of injured humanity, and offended 
virtue, cried out " Hypocrites — that devour widows' houses, and 
for show make long prayers : the same shall receive greater 
damnation." 



Plain- Talk. 

The slave party are in the habit of denouncing us as incen- 
diary. We say in our paper, that the slaves are impotent : their 
press teems with talk of murder, insurrection, rape, fire, and poi- 
son. We tell of the necessary submission of the slave and 
freedman ; they, of the tvnnult and insubordination of both. 
Now we leave it to every candid man to say, whose paper is 
the most dangerous to fall into the hands of slaves, theirs, or 
ours? For long months, the whole city press here, was most 
violent and denunciatory and mui'derous in its tone against us, 
aud 710 defence allorced us in their columns. Yet none of their 
great men spoke out for us ; no public meeting was called to 
denounce the plotters against the lives of loyal citizens ; but so 
soon as we took measures for our own defence, and civil war 
was threatenedj the slave party were the first to turn around 



272 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

and ridicule all ^ idea of mobs ! And yet they now have the 
hardihood to affect horror at insurrectionary matter being put 
in print ! Just as false is the insinuation that we are disturb- 
ing the old course of events, that we are the aggressors against 
the present rights of slaveholders. The law of '33 was passed 
with the inherited belief and faith of our people, that slavery 
was a curse, which all sensible and honest men were bound, by 
patriotism and religion, to throw off whenever it could be done 
with safety, and without producing greater evils than actual 
slavery. We appeal to all if this was not public opinion, " the 
unwritten common law of the South." Then arose up a party 
who repudiated the doctrines of Washington and Jefferson, and 
began to cry in the wilderness, the new doctrine, that slavery 
was of God, and true repubhcanism. The repeal of the law of 
'33 was projected by this sect ; its overthrow was a direct as- 
sault upon our old faith ; it proposed to stay the progress of free 
principles, and turn back the tide of safe and gradual emanci- 
pation. It avowed its design of amalgamating our interests 
with the ultras of the South ; that school which had made up 
their minds to slavery, or death ! A party without God or hope 
in the world ! Not to go with this party, was treason ; no neu- 
trality was allowed : " they who are not for us are against us." 
Against this course of policy, we had no other help, than to ap- 
peal from the slaveholders, to the people— from our masters to 
our own brothers ! "Let them alone !" we did let them alone 
for half a century ; but not satisfied with our tame and base 
subserviency, they would impose upon us new chains and make 
our bondage eternal ! Well, then, war is declared ; it depends 
upon the slave party, who proclaimed it, to say, whether it is to 
be carried on by the ordinary laws of civilized nations, or 
whether it shall be savage and heathen — " ivar to the knife .'" 



The Time has not Come ! 

Such is the cry of our masters ; this was the cry in 1789 — it 
has poured its syren notes upon confiding and deluded ears, for 
half a century — it has not yet come ! The Greeks told a story 
of a man, who attempted to learn his horse to live without eat- 
ing ; his plan was to subtract each day. one straw from hia 



THE TIME COME. 273 

accustomed food ; at last when the last straw was fed away, 
the horse died ! Now my readers suppose, of course, that when 
the foolish master saw his false system, he was sorry for his 
poor horse ! Not at all ; he complained, that so soon as he 
learned to live without eating, then foolishly he died ! The 
time for our masters to free us from our impoverishment and 
death from the straw-subtracting system of slavery has not yet 
come ! When did men as a body ever in the history of man- 
kind, lay down voluntarily unjust power ? Never ! The time 
has never, with them, come ! — it never will ! When the last 
straw shall fail us, and death come upon us, in bitter mockery 
they will cry " fools, as soon as they learned to live without eat- 
ing, then they died." Free laborers of Kentucky, let us not lie 
down and die like beasts in the hands of those who have for 
half a century been faking from us straw after straw ! From 
the garrets and the cellars, and the cheerless alleys of slave-op- 
pressed cities — from the rocky hills and remote neglected val- 
leys — let the cry be borne on every breeze that sweeps over our 
long down-trodden and slave-ridden state — " The time has come ! 
and Kentucky shall be free .'" 



The Convention. 

It is a great mistake to suppose, that the defeat of the con- 
vention, a few years ago, shows that slavery is firm on its 
throne of despotic and unrelenting power. Thousands, who 
went against the convention then, were the emancipationists, 
among them we were numbered. When a convention is called 
again, it will be upon the main issue, slavery or liberty! Our 
power will be fully known, before we go into convention : we 
will come up to the polls, like regular soldiers, with the spirit 
of 70, Liberty or Death ! 



Lo ! Here — Lo ! There. 

The pro-slavery party of the North are mistaken, when they 
take the press of the South as a criterion of public sentiment : 
they are the mouth-pieces of the slaveholders, who are the 
18 



274 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

property holders of the country : they hold the bread of the 
press in their hands : to expect them to speak out like men, is 
to expect every mother's son of them to be Martin Luthers, 
Emmets, and Hampdens, which is absurd. Politicians are no 
better ; where is the man among them, who will sacrifice pre- 
sent power, to the contingency of hereafter rising with the 
swelling tide of freedom? The Church continues to take great 
pleasure in talking to their self-complacent auditors, " of the 
beauty of holiness— the exceeding sinfulness of sin." The 
seeds of an independent party is planted — a party of slow but 
sure growth, but of certain success and lasting power — traitors 
and rebels in the eyes of the American slaveocracy— but patriots 
and immortals in the grateful appreciations of coming gene- 
rations. 



Blowing Hot and Cold with the same Breath. — 
Sally Muller declared Free. 

"Judgment was yesterday rendered in the Supreme Court in 
favor of the plaintiff in the case of Sally Muller vs. Louis Bel- 
monti and John F. Miller, called in warranty. The decree was 
read by his honor, Judge BuUard, and is said to be a document 
characteristic of his high judicial attainments. The counsel for 
the unfortunate Sally, were. Christian Roselius and Wheelock 
S. Upton ; and we learn that it is in contemplation by those 
who have taken an interest in the fate of the plaintiff to pay 
them some public mark of respect. 

" Some twelve months ago when this case was before the dis- 
trict court, we gave a brief sketch of its features. Sally 
claimed to be born in Germany and of German parents ; of 
having come to this country when an infant with her father and 
mother, who reached here as " redemptioners," and died shortly 
after their arrival. John F. Miller alleged that she was born 
a slave and as his property ; as such he brought her up, and as 
such sold her to Louis Belmonti ; and now, after being for a 
quarter of a century, or thereabouts subjected to all the degrada- 
tions of domestic bondage and servile labor, she is, by our highest 
tribunal, declared free !" — Neio Orleans Picayune. 

Because Sally happens to be a German, the Picayune affects 
to be heart-struck ! J. F. Miller with a sweet and quiet huma- 



THOMAS METCALF. 275 

nity sells Sally — and he is a villain : Mexico, the supreme 
power over Texas, declares all persons of all colors free : the 
United States citizens, with blood, fire, and death, violently 
subvert the decree, and all is glorious ! Are the Lynchers dead 
in New Orleans, that the Picayune dares to sneer at the " bless- 
ings of the Patriarchal Institution?" Henry Clay, out of 
regard for Charles' fidelity, liberated him: the press is full of 
Paeans at this act of justice and mercy which moves editorial 
hearts! Another man undertakes to enlarge the bounds of un- 
compromising justice, to the liberation of the whole human 
race : immediately thunders of denunciation overwhelm " the 
fanatic." All at once it is found out that slavery is the greatest 
of blessings, and liberty the height of cruelty ! Out of some 
50,000 fugitives from slavery, some one or two cases of volun- 
tary return from a cold and cheerless exile, to home, " wife 
children, and friends," are hunted up to stop the mouths of all 
cavillers ! Now, we undertake to say, that out of three millions 
of slaves, noi one able-bodied man, woman or child, can be 
found who will refuse emancipation, on the soil. Is there no 
drug in the shops— no vegetable leaf, or earth- covered root— by 
sea and shore, "no mute nor living thing," — that will cure our 
people of this Janus-faced morality ? 



LEXINGTON, TUESDAY, JULY 22. 

T. M. Again ! 

The reply of ex-Governor T. M. to our former article, we 
lay before our readers to-day. We do not so out of any claim 
which he has to be heard ; but because we wish to show the 
people of other states, the kind of men we have to deal with ; 
and that we may meet here together, many calumnies, which 
singly, or coming from another source, are unworthy of notice. 
If we ever harbored any personal feeling against this silly old 
man, it would be fully gratified by letting him thus expose 
himself to the world : but the contrary is the truth. If we 
denounced him in our former article, it was because of his 



276 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY 

principles ; and because justice to our cause and the claims of 
humanity, demanded their utter reprobation. It is true, that we 
made him ridiculous; a thing which our comparative ages 
should have forbid ; but when the ex-Governor himself ventured 
upon ridicule, we could not refrain from a penchant we have for 
contenming all humbug ; and we could not but take a pull at 
" old stone-hammer's" hunting shirt and songs, at the risk of 
spoiling much good sport in future. 

The Governor begins by terming us the aggressor in a per- 
sonal way. It is true he did not allude to us by name ; but it 
seems that he is not only conversant with our personal history, 
but our political views. Our address to the people of Kentucky 
was out, and our prospectus for publishing an emancipation 
paper was published, just before the ex-Governor puts out his 
denunciation of all emancipators. Every one who has read 
both of our pieces, will see that Mr. M.'s former letter is more 
" personal and abusive" than our own, although he had the 
shrewdness to use indirection then, as he does now, in preference 
to open and manly battle. The Governor will not refute us 
before the pubhc in "argument;" neither v/ill he "fight" us! 
What then ? Believing that our prowess consists in words, he is 
ambitious of showing us that he can beat us blackguarding ! 
We learn that Mr. McDuffie declined meeting him once, because 
he proposed to* fight with ungentlemanly weapons. We, too, 
for the same reason, refuse his weapons. We shall not, there- 
fore, retort in kmd to the Governor's fire ; for our moral eleva- 
tion places us out of the reach of his batteries. We shall notice 
his long letter in detail, in order that the name of one who has 
been set at the head of aflairs in this commonwealth, shall not 
hereafter be set down in sustaining against us these calumnious 
charges, which have not even the merit of novelty to recom- 
mend them. 

It is true we wear a " dagger ;" but we deny ever having been 
in our life an aggressor upon any man ; so that if we be a 
" daggered assassin," we ask the Governor to produce the 
proofs ! And if we be an assassin, the fact that the Governor 
" marched into France, and then marched out again," proves 
that he does not deem us a "dastard assassin." The truth is, 
that we should much have regretted a personal contest with 
T. M. ; and we feel obhged to him that he has deferred " per- 
sonal chastisement till Texas shall be put out of the Union ;" 



THOMAS METCALF. 277 

because, whether we had lost or won, we should have reaped 
no laurels. But if he came up here from Frankfort to attack 
us, as we are credibly informed, it comes with a bad grace from 
one who has practically concluded " that discretion is the better 
part of valor," to reproach us with cowardice ! Whilst we pro- 
test against expressions made previous to the revelation of his 
true character being used in bar of subsequent action, and the 
indelicacy of the Observer and Reporter, in detailing a famiUar 
conversation, w^e are wilhng to admit, for argument's sake, that 
Ave are rightly reported, in language of whose accuracy we 
cannot now\ of course, be sure. And as much as he depreciates 
us, we are too mindful of our own self-respect to deny that we 
believe T. M. incapable of deUberately telling an untruth ; 
while his first and second letters prove beyond doubt, that in mo- 
ments of excitement, he makes allegations injurious to others, 
which are without any other evidence than the creation of his 
own '-heat-oppressed brain.'" In the same spirit, if he or any 
of his friends will prove to us that we have in the least " slan- 
dered" him, we are ready to retract, and make all the amends 
in our power. But until this is done, as there is in our former 
article " nothing extenuate or aught set down in malice ;" so 
now after reading his defence, we still contend that there is 
nothing there which we would "palliate or deny." We have 
nothing to say in reply to the foreign matter which he lugs in, 
about our early education, Yale College, and New Englanders. 
The Northern people can fully vindicate themselves ; and our 
native state knows full well that we censure her for the love w^e 
bear her ; and if we blame rather than praise, it is because we 
are more careful of her honor than of our own elevation. We 
imputed to him his " stone hammer" as an honor, not as a re- 
proach. It is he, not we, who attach disgrace to labor and its 
implements. " Vain," as we are willing to admit w^e are, we 
have ever avoided singing our own pceans. We are willing to 
leave it to others to sit in judgment upon our humble history. 
The ex-Governor was born poor and obscure, and has become 
rich and famous : in his prosperity he forgets " the widow and 
(he orphan," and shows his gratitude to God by using his ele- 
vated name to the eternal oppression of the bodies, minds, and 
souls of men. We w'ere born in the circle to which he has at 
length in spite of many vulgarities which attest his origin, forced 
his way ; having wealth, position, and high political prospects, we 



278 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

deemed them naught while the poor were oppressed by our 
monopoly. If there is anything consoling in the comparison, 
the Governor is welcome to run it out in full ; for really we 
consider this trifling unworthy of us and the public ear. 

We supported Garrison and his friends because we believe 
that right is ever in the long run expedient — because we love 
justice more than power, and fear God more than men. This 
man's letter will, before the American people, prove that slave- 
holding fanaticism is worse than anti-slavery fanaticism ; and 
that we spoke but now proven truth when we said that Garrison 
is a better, infinitely better man than T. M. The Governor, 
after indulging in insane and impotent rage, and unqualified 
epithets, undertakes to give our personal history and political life. 
And again falsely charges us with being a hypocrite and traitor. 
This people know that what honors we have received, have 
been won by a fair and honorable reliance upon our merits and 
measures, and never by hanging upon the skirts of great men ! 
Whilst we have been a consistent friend of Mr. Clay, we never 
played the part of sycophant as some others have ! When in 
1840, in the National Convention, we in common with a great 
many of Mr. Clay's supporters, were sitting in tears and silence, 
overcome with the sense of injustice that he was betrayed in 
the house of his friends — this same M. sprang to his feet, in obe- 
dience to his eternal instincts of waiting on the source of power, 
and passed the most fulsome eulogies upon Harrison, in a man- 
ner that was out of place and repugnant to the feelings of every 
Kentuckian then present, under the peculiar circumstances 
which surrounded them. We have consistently supported Mr. 
Clay from our earliest youth to the last : and we are yet a 
member of the whig party, and hold the same principles which 
we have ever held. We avowed in the canvass of 1810, in 
Fayette, our opposition to perpetuating slavery : we did the same 
in '41. See our Review of 1840 and speech in the Legislature 
of the same winter, and then let the public say if we have ever 
in our life, changed a principle, betrayed a party, or deserted a 
friend. 

We were beaten by R. Wickliflfe in 1841, by illegal votes, as 
we have elsewhere, again and again shown by the records of the 
county.* A man, however, is not always an impartial judge in 

* We were elected ia our native county to the Legislature as soon as we 
were eligible ; the last time we were a candidate there, we were the foremost 



THOMAS METCALF. 279 

his own cause ; let that pass. It is not true, that we spent thou- 
sands of dollars in that contest, nor one thousand ! It is true, 
we suffered much from securityships, then, before, and since. 
It is true that we bought votes that offered themselves in the 
market ; unhappy country where such things are — and more 
unhappy still, when an ex-governor imputes to others, faults 
whicli he confesses in his own person ! The Governor imputes 
our conduct in establishing a paper, to our personal chagrin at 
" the cold reception we met on our return from the North.'' 
Fortunately, there are letters now in the hands of several emi- 
nent citizens of the republic, showing our design of publishing 
a paper before we left home, which will prove once more the ac- 
cumulated slanders of this man. The contrast between his 
policy and ours, is again grateful to our self-respect. We both 
courted the abohtionists for Mr. Clay, we for principle, he for 
power. We were the same to them after as before defeat ; he 
became their slanderer, we their defender from his unfounded 
calumnies ! The ex-governor, after having finished our career, 
as he vainly hopes, then proceeds to speak of his own success 
in life. This is in harmony with the exquisite taste of his own 
soubriquets of " the same old coon," and " the hard-faced old 
stone-hammer," and ^'- the lump of innocence P We have too 
much self-respect to follow in his lead, else we could fill our 
sheet, not with what we, but what others say in our praise. He 
then attempts to prove that we slandered him in saying that 
" the public regarded him as a standing candidate for any sine- 
cure which might fall uppermost." We repeat the charge. He 
was a candidate for the Senate, when we were in the Legisla- 
ture ; he was voted for ; he was in Frankfort, and, of course, 
nmst have approved it. He was nominated at a public meeting 
as a candidate for Governor, and he never formally declined, 
and was generally considered a candidate. When he got to 



ill the nice. The first year we moved to Fayette, in 1810, so soon as we were 
elisible, we beat R. Wickliffe, the most talented, and wealthy, and prominent 
young man in the county, if not in the state. In 1841, we were swindled out 
of our electi.m by the slave party— every judge of the election in all the pre- 
cincts being against us What then was the " damning infamy" which all at 
once ruined such seeming prosperous career? We turned "traitor" worse 
than " IJurr or Arnold"— we turned traitor to slavery! We did that 
which a South Carolina divine deemed "worse than slaying his own mother, 
or losing his own soul in hell." We denounced it then, we denounce it now, 
and we will denounce it for ever ! 



280 TUB WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

Louisville, and found Owsley too much for him he made a vir- 
tue of necessity, and then, and not till then, dechned ! He has 
lately been regarded by his friends, in the list of candidates for 
Cono"ress, which he admits ; he declined the nomination, very 
likely, because his letter would have assisted in adding another 
item to the evidence that the people of Kentucky had long since 
lost confidence in him ! And, to cap the climax, we find him 
in the actual possession of a sinecure, for which every one must 
admit he is utterly unfit ; and yet, in the teeth of all these 
proven facts, he ventures to impute to us " slander," and calls 
upon us to retract the charge, or admit ourself "a liar and 
scoundrel." We have thus, at the hazard of wearying our read- 
ers, gone over all his charges, and refuted them, by reference to 
witnesses and records, who and which are familiar to our peo- 
ple ; whilst every allegation we made, stands eternally against 
him. I'his task was not at first, nor now, an agreeable one. 
The disparity in our ages gives him the sympathies of men, 
and, for this very reason, no doubt, he was put forward by the 
slave party to overawe and brow-beat the friends of emancipa- 
tion, as he incautiously admits, " it is much more my (his) true 
'policy to provoke your [my) ireJ^ Slave champions have found, 
or will find, that we are not so easily, by passion, thrown oflf our 
guard as is supposed, that in action we are very cool in the use 
of our blade ; and even the governor may have reason to ex- 
claun, with the hectoring knight of the play : 

" Had I known he were so cunning in fence, 
I'd have seen him danm«?il, ere I had challenged him." 

Texas is annexed: believing it to have been unconstitutional 
by joint resolution to annex foreign nations to us before the elec- 
tion, we are of tlxe same opinion still. Those who look to the 
source of office more than principle, will no doubt quietly sub- 
mit. But, as we love our Constitution more than slavery, all 
impotent as we are, "never will we lay down our arms !" So 
we bid the " lump of innocence," more in sorrow than in an- 
ger, farewell ! If the slaveholders expect to maintain the war 
against liberty and republicanism, they must get some more 
Herculean champion than the man with the hunting shirt; and 
let the ex-governor return once more to his proper sphere of 
hammering stone, or singing the really good old song of " wife, 
children, and frieridsP 



PROPERTY LAW. 281 

We have long expected this servile taunt of being unfriend- 
ly to Mr. Clay, because we have not and will not yield up our 
convictions to him or any other man. We were born as free 
as Cffisar ; we call no man master. We say nothing of intellect ; 
but the moral part of our being is under our own control. In 
the untrammeled expansion of our own spirit, we have diverged 
from Henry Clay's lead, upon the vital subject of the liberties of 
men. Posterity shall justly assign us our relative rank ! 



That is Property which the Law makes Property, 

The Signal of Liberty asks me to answer the argument of the 
Albany Patriot, against the postulate that " what the law makes 
property is property." It is the doctrine of republican govern- 
ments that the majority should rule according to the fundamen- 
tal law ; a man who resists the law is a traitor and outlaw, and 
is liable to be, and ought to be shot down with impunity. No 
government upon earth can stand an hour upon any other 
principle than that, '• That which the laio makes property is 
propcrtt/y One man has as much natural right to the land as 
another: yet if we intrude ourself into our neighbor's field, we 
are shot down, and the world exclaims, " Well !" Why ? be- 
cause it is the law ! Mr. C.'s wife is in love with us, we recipro- 
cate her affection, if we attempt to seize upon her, or we volun- 
tarily escape from the husband's house, and he comes upon us 
and shoots us down, he is guiltless ! and all say well ! Why? 
because tiie law has made it so ! My son at twenty is full grown 
in person and mind, U decoys him from my employ with more 
advantageous oilers : we sue him for damages and recover, and 
all say well ! Why ? because the law is so ! AVe are a Turk, 
and have two wives, the Patriot comes and wins the affec- 
tions of one, and takes her : we shoot him down, and he has no 
redress ! Why ? because it is the law ! A thousand similar 
cases might be adduced, both in accordance with and in opposi- 
tion to natural law— both in accordance with and against re- 
vealed religion — both in accordance with and against the con- 
scientious impressions of men with regard to right and wrong ! 
Upon the same basis, then, does slavery stand : and the 
same course of reasoning might induce any one to attack any 



282 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

Other positive institution of law, that leads him violently, or by 
physical force or fraud to resist slavery. In reply to the case 
put : If we were invited to dinner in New York, and seized 
upon and reduced to slavery, what would we do 1 We reply, 
that we would use all the means which we deemed most ezpe- 
dient for our liberation for an unjust bondage — a bondage in 
violation of all natural law. But if such were the law of New 
York, and the patriot should attempt to resist the authorities by 
force, and was shot down, however much we might gratefully 
sympathize with him, we would be constrained to acknowledge 
the justice of his fate. Because, in resisting, by violence, even 
a manifestly unjust act, he violated the principles of all govern- 
ment b}^ not submitting to the laws, till changed by constitu- 
tional means. Because in resisting an isolated case jof oppres- 
sion, he opened the door to the loss of every man's liberty in the 
state of New York, for without laio there is no Hbc?'ti/. The re- 
sistance of law by violence is rebellion and treason, in all cases, 
and should be punished with the severest infliction ; because it 
is the greatest of crimes by inducing all others. If the laws of 
New York legalized the betrayal of hospitality to the grossest 
fraud and oppression, what ought the Patriot to do? He ouglit 
to use neither violence nor fraud. He ought to call moral 
power and the laws of nature and of God to his help, to cry 
aloud and spare not. to stand to his arms in the defence of his 
constitutional right of speech and of the press, and implore all 
good men in all the world, to aid him by their countenance in 
sweeping the infamous statute from the code of the state. The 
people of the United States see us in that position ! Will they 
embarrass us with frivolous denunciations about force and child- 
ish technicalities ? or will they, in the true spirit of reason, re- 
ligion and humanity, aid us in their cause and ours ? 



You are either for slavery or against it — if for it, be manly 
and say so ! " and there's an end on 't." If you are against it, 
you shall not shield yourselves from the guilt of doing 'nothing. 
If we are too ultra, we stand less chance of carrying our point : 
if we do not go far enough, go ahead of us. If you carry the 
blacks to the moon, and everybody is for carrying the blacks to 
the moon, then go into the movement and into the Convention, 



MOONLIGHT. 283 

vote us down and carry your point, and if to the moon the blacks 
shall go, we shall say well done ! Why do you stand waiting 
and complaining of others ? Are you not willing to submit to 
the majority ? then you are a traitor to our republicanism ! Let 
us hear no more of this silly hesitancy ; be either for or against, 
either hot or cold, lest the manly of both parties "spew you out 
of their mouths !" 



Moonlight. 

For the last few nights we have had the most lovely moon- 
light. We have heard much of Italian skies and Oriental trees 
and shrubbery ; but if in any portion of the globe the stars 
look down more numerously bright from deeper and purer 
heavens, nowhere do their soft and twinkling rays, or the calm 
melancholy beams of the Queen of Night fall upon more mag- 
nificent masses of luxmiant vegetation. When we throw open 
the lattice and look out upon the glorious harmony and heaven- 
ly beauty of the visible world, how painfully do we feel that 
man's own wild passions are his only foes : 

"We make, ourselves, more pointed still, 
Regret, remorse, and shame !" 

The same, unsullied and michanged, is the face of that moon 
Avhich shone upon our earliest youth ; the same, those old trees 
v.hich bask in its ethereal light ; the catydids, the crickets, and 
tree-frogs pour their unceasing, melancholy notes upon the ear, 
the !-ame as when they moved our boyish heart to strange emo- 
tions, and filled our heavy lids with unbidden tears! But oh, 
how changed that scathed and strife-riven spirit of our advanc- 
ing years ! Is not the memory of joys departed, the true re- 
morse? Is not crime but the destruction of the capabilities of 
the soul for that perfect happiness which is found only in ex- 
act obedience to nature's laws ? Docs any man remember when 
he first, in silent, oriental idolatry, looked upon the face of 
some beautiful girl, and poured forth the intoxicating incense 
of the heart in the language of looks, which words would not 
and could not express? Do the affections, like some lovely 
llower bud, gloriously bloom, and then, in fallen and scattered 



284 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

leaves, perish for ever ? Are friendship, fihal, and parental, and 
brotherly, and sisterly, regard, subject to the same laws? and 
has the time come when we shall in despair learn that they are 
past? No ; men, and women, look out upon all lovely nature, 
these moonlight nights ; the vivid emotions of youth come back 
again, and all may joyously exclaim, " the soul but sleepeth ; it 
is not dead !" 



LEXINGTON, TUESDAY, AUGUST 12. 

Our leader to-day is from one of the very first intellects in 
this nation ; and as he is a large slaveholder, we allow him to 
speak his sentiments in his own language. We shall give our 
plan of emancipation in our next. 



We are called once more to our hard and responsible task 
from a bed of long and painful illness. The inquiry has been 
frequently made, we are told, whether we were living or dead, 
with hopes for the worst, in the bosoms of some. We are proud 
to say that the man does not live, whom we would, if we could 
effect it by the mere exertion of the will, cause one moment's 
pain, far less compass in desire, his death. " To freemen, the 
disgrace attending our misconduct is, in my opinion, the most 
urgent necessity. ' Is Philip dead ?' ' No, but in great danger.' 
How are you concerned in these rumors ? Suppose he should 
meet some fatal stroke : you would soon raise up another Phi- 
Hp, if your interests are thus regarded." It is the weakness and 
disease in the state that has forced us into our present position ; 
and if we should perish, the same causes would raise up many 
more and abler than we to vindicate the same cause. 

We had hoped to see on this continent, the great axiom, tliat 
man is capable of self-government, amply vindicated. We had 
no objections to the peaceable and honorable extension of em- 
pire over the whole continent, if equal freedom expanded with 
the bounds of the nation. Gladly would we have seen untold 
millions of freemen, enjoying liberty of conscience and pursuit, 



"IS PHILIP DEAD?" 285 

of resting under their own vine and fig- tree with none to make 
them afraid, standing upon a sacred and inviolate constitution 
at home, and just towards all nations — such was the vision of 
the immortal Washington, and such was ours. But we are told 
the enunciation of the great and soul-stirring principles of Revo- 
lutionary patriots was a lie : as a dog returns to his vomit we 
are to go back to the foul and cast off rags of European tyranny 
to iiide our nakedness. Slavery, tlie most unmitigated, the low- 
est, basest that the world has seen, is to be substituted for ever 
for our better, more glorious, holier aspirations ; the constitu- 
tion is torn and trampled under foot ; justice and good faith in 
a nation are derided ; brute force is substituted in the place of 
high moral tone. All the great principles of national liberty 
winch we inherited from our British ancestry are yielded up ; 
and we are left without God or hope in tiie world. When the 
great hearted of our land weep, and the man of reflection mad- 
dens in the contemplation of our national apostacy ; there are 
men pursuing gain and pleasure, who smile with contempt and 
indifference at their appeals. But remember, you who dwell in 
marble palaces, that there are strong arms and fiery hearts and 
iron pikes in the streets, and panes of glass only between them 
and the silver plate on the board, and the smooth skinned wo- 
man on the ottoman. When you have mocked at virtue, de- 
nied the agency of God in the affairs of men, and made rapine 
your honeyed faith, tremble ! for the day of retribution is at hand, 
and the masses will be avensred. 



We are informed that there is a lawyer in this city of very 
small intellect, and infinitesimal shade of a soul, who has been 
busying himself about our paper from the beginning, and latterly 
reporting that we give papers to slaves, both our own paper and 
papers from our exchange list. Now our publisher has gone so 
far, although there is nothing in our sheet that a slave might 
not safely read, as to adopt the rule to require subscribers to 
write an order when they send by slaves for their papers. We 
have, out of regard to the opinions and prejudices of slavehold- 
ers, avoided printing and circulating tracts gratuitously, which 
every one sees would greatly forward oin- cause, by reaching a 
class of men who rarely take or read newspapers, because they 



286 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

are very liable to fall into the hands of slaves, and thus subject 
us to censure. Our exchange list is open to the perusal of any 
white citizen, and no others. We know that there are evils 
attending the discussion of this subject; but every sensible man 
is av/are that they will never grow less, but will ever increase ; 
they must be met now or never. Slavery does not slough off 
of itself, as some suppose. In those parts of Maryland Avhere 
slavery prevails most, and where now her ablest men admit that 
it has become utterly useless and eminently injurious, the slaves 
have increased on the whites up to the present hour : and so 
also in Virginia ; and so also in Kentucky. So that w^ must 
come up to this subject, cautiously but determinedly. There 
are some men who suppose that our efforts will be abortive; if 
so, it is not our fault, but the fault of others. But we are of a 
far different opinion ; from the late political movements in Louis- 
ville, we are induced to beheve that to-day our friends there 
are in a majority ; when this city takes open anti-slavery 
ground, the institution cannot long stand. In conclusion, we 
give this officious lawyer a gentle hint, that if he does not let us 
alone, we will hi'and him so that his children will not outlive 
his disgrace. 



Speech of G. D. on taking his seat in Congress. 

Compeers and descendants of Washington, among those 
great principles of human liberty for which millions of our 
English ancestors were willing to lay down their lives, was the 
right of the people to petition their rulers for a redress of griev- 
ances. And our forefathers wisely incorporated this essential 
right of freemen into our organic law, that in all time there 
should be no cavil or misunderstanding upon this subject. And 
this Constitution I have solemnly before God and men sworn 
to support ; yet there has arisen in this land a power higher 
than the Constitution, more exacting than conscience— the slave 
power. It demands that I should yield up the right of petition, 
and I have done so. I have thus proven myself loyal to them, 
and by abandoning one great principle of liberty, I have shown 
myself a willing servant ready to do their will in all things 
whatever. All I ask in return, is the prefix of honorable to my 
name, eight dollars a day, rock fish, and oyster patties ! 



C. M. CLAY'S APPEAL— No. L 287 

T. F. Marshall. 

We had intended to say something upon this gentleman's 
handbill. But when we reflect that we have gone to the ex- 
pense of republishing his letters upon slavery for distribution, as 
the ablest argument against the ^^ unmitigated ciirse^'' which 
we could lay before the pubhc, we feel that it would be trifling 
with the good sense of the people to set about refuting his poor 
ragged argument, lately put forth in opposition to his earlier, 
manlier, and sincerer views, when no miserable purpose was to 
be subserved at the expense of high and holy principle. He is 
beaten, and we have no heart to pursue the subject farther. 



TRUE AMERICAN-EXTRA. 

No. I. ' ■ 

LEXINGTON, AUGUST 15, 1845. 

To A Just People. 

I deem it due to myself, the cause of the people, and the con- 
stitutional liberty of my state, that I make a few explanations 
before the enemies of tliese proceed to extremity, that they may 
be left without excuse in the estimation of all just men. I 
learned a few moments before 3 o'clock, that a public meeting 
was to be holden at tiiat hour in the Court House, to take mea- 
sures for the suppression of the publication of the True American. 
Immediately, unwell as I was, I proceeded to the Court House, 
to vindicate, as I shall ever be ready to do, the principles and 
policy maintained in that paper. 1 found about twenty indi- 
viduals, including some two or three personal friends who fol- 
lowed me in. I knew them all to be political, and three-fourths 
of them violent personal, enemies. I saw but one so-called whig, 
and he has been ever since the publication of the paper, one of 
its most violent opponents. 1 will give the names of these 



288 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

men, hereafter to the pubHc. Two speakers proposed to dissolve 
the meeting : and one Henry Johnson, a cotton planter, declared 
that although he was ever ready to act boldly upon this subject, 
he would not then, nor hereafter, take any action in regard to 
the True American, unless the whig party also came up and 
incurred the same responsibility. T. F. Marshall said that he 
had regarded it as a public not a private meeting, and that he 
conceived that the public dissatisfaction and excitement were 
based upon the editorial published by me in the last " American," 
where I spoke of the consequence of the disregard of the prin- 
ciples of justice by the leading men of the nation ; and another 
person remarked, that the dissatisfaction was also founded upon 
the opinion set forth in the leader of the last paper. Here several 
persons contended that it was a private meeting, upon which I 
started to leave the house, explaining to Mr. Marshall, in passing, 
that a construction had been put upon my article which it never 
entered ray head to convey, and which any sensible man w^ho 
will read the piece will see, who knows the circumstances in 
which I am placed, having regard to common sense, the effec- 
tuation of my own purposes, or the safety of myself and rela- 
tives, I could never have intended to give it. It will be perceived 
by the reader of that article, that the whole piece alludes to 
national policy, and the loss of a high sense of justice in the 
admmistration of our national affairs, resulting from the influence 
of negro slavery upon the national action, even to the habitual 
violation of the Constitution. And further, I meant to convey 
the idea, in my elliptical manner, that in a country like ours, 
w^here suffrage is universal, and standing armies impossible, 
that those men who are drawing substance and power from the 
existence and extension of slavery, at the expense of the interests 
of the great masses of the legal voters of this Union, who are 
now and have been sacrificed at the shrine of slavery — that 
these men, the white millions (having no allusion whatever to 
the blacks of the South) would, in the course of time, when that 
poverty piessed upon them which slavery had been the most 
instrumental in causing, follow the example of their plunderers, 
and in turn plunder them. Such was the case in France, when 
the oppressed rose upon the oppressor, and spared neither pro- 
perty, life, nor sex. 

As to the blacks, we have ever held in our printed arguments, 
and in our secret opinion, that the slaves, whilst the Union lasts, 



C. M. CLAY'S ArrEAL— No. I. 289 

are utterly impotent for aii}^ very extensive mischief, even in the 
cotton countries. And I regard the idea of insurrection in Ken- 
tucky, where there are about six whites to one black, as ridicu- 
lous, and only used by the slaveholders as a bugaboo, to main- 
tain the ascendency of their power in the state : and even if an 
insurrection should take place, I feel myself as much bound, as 
any citizen in the state, to shoulder my musket to suppress it, 
and in the discharge of my duty I am not willing to admit that 
any person is more ready. With regard to the leader of the 
same paper. I said in the beginning that I intended to allow full 
freedom of discussion upon the subject of slavery, and I said for 
several weeks, at the head of my editorial columns, under my 
own signature, that I intended to allow, under the editorial head 
also, great latitude of opinion, without comment. Differing as 
I did in some important points from the writer of this article, 
who I repeat is a large slaveholder, I intended to give my indi- 
vidual views on the same subject, in my very next number, 
which when given will put my enemies under the necessity of 
denoimcing, when they denounce me, the immortal Washington, 
a name sacred to the lovers of liberty of all time and place. I 
had not expected, in the abundance of my charity, that the most 
fallen men would have taken advantage of my helpless condi- 
tion, arising from a long and painful illness, to sacrifice me ; 
when even in health I stood almost one man against a thousand. 
I tell these men, however, that they much mistake their man, 
and that if they do succeed in accomplishing their purposes 
and seal their triumph with my blood, that their banners of vic- 
tory shall wave over a violated Constitution, the grave of liberty, 
and the impious defiance of the laAvs of God, and the moral 
sense of all mankind. If I stood in defence of my own right 
only, I might be deterred from the unfequal contest ; but when 
I stand for the six hundred thousand free white citizens of my 
native state, to which, and her interests, concentred by all repub- 
lican principles, in the majority of her people, I owe eternal 
allegiance, I cannot lay down my arms. To my children, and 
friends, wherever found, if I know myself, it shall never be said, 
at least of one citizen of Kentucky, that he preferred life to 
honor and duty to his country. 

Cassius M. Clay. 
Thursday, August 14^/i, 1845. 

P. S. Since writing the above handbill, I have received the follow- 
19 



290 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

ing letter from the hands of Thomas H. Waters, on my sick 
bed, at my own house. 

Lexington^ lAth August^ 1845. 

Cassius M. Clay, Esq. 

Sir : — We, the undersigned, have been appointed as a 
committee upon the part of a number of the respectable citizens 
of the city of Lexington to correspond with you, under the fol- 
lowing resolution : 

Resolved^ That a committee of three be appointed to wait 
upon Cassius M. Clay, Editor of the " True American," and 
request him to discontinue the publication of the paper called 
the "True American," as its further continuance, in our judg- 
ment, is dangerous to the peace of our community, and to the 
safety of our homes and families. 

In pursuance of the above, we hereby request you to discon- 
tinue your paper, and would seek to impress upon you the 
importance of your acquiescence. Your paper is agitating and 
exciting our community to an extent of which you can scarcely 
be aware. We do not approach you in the form of a threat. 
But we owe it to you to state, that, in our judgment, your own 
safety, as well as the repose and peace of the community, are 
involved in your answer. We await your reply, in the hope 
that your own good sense and regard for the reasonable wishes 
of a community in which you have many connexions and 
friends, will induce you promptly to comply with our request. 
We are instructed to reportyour answe" to a meeting, to-morrow 
evening, at three o'clock, and will expect it by two o'clock, p. m., 
of to-morrow. 

Respectfully, &c. 

B. W. Dudley, 
Thomas H. Waters, 
John W. Hunt. 

To which I made the following reply, which will be delivered 
to-day, at the hour appointed : 

Sirs : — I received through the hands of Mr. Thomas H. 
Waters, one of your committee, since candle-light, your ex- 
traordinary letter. Two of your committee and myself are not 
upon speaking terms, and when I add to this the fact that you 
have taken occasion to address me a note of this character, 
when I am on a bed of sickness of more than a month's stand- 



LETTER TO THE ASSASSINS. 291 

ing, from which I have only ventured at intervals to ride out 
and to write a few paragraphs, which have caused a relapse, I 
think that the American people will agree with me, that your 
office is a hase and dishonorable one : more particularly when 
they reflect that you have had more than two months whilst I 
was in health to accomplish the same purpose. I say in reply 
to your assertion that you are a committee appointed by a re- 
spectable portion of the community, that it cannot be true. 
Traitors to the laws and Constitution cannot be deemed respect- 
able by any but assassins, pirates, and highway robbers. Your 
meeting is one unknown to the laws and constitution of my 
country ; it was secret in its proceedings ; its purposes, its spirit, 
and its action, like its mode of existence, are wholly unknown 
to and in direct violation of every known principle of honor, 
religion, or government, held sacred by the civilized world. I 
trcnt them with the burning contempt of a brave heart and a 
loyal citizen. I deny their power and defy their action. It may 
be true that those men are excited as you say, whose interest 
it is to prey upon the excitement and distresses of the country. 
What tyrant ever failed to be excited when his unjust power 
was about to be taken from his hands? But I deny, utterly 
deny, and call for proof, that there is any just ground for this 
agitation. In every case of violence by the blacks since the 
publication of ray paper, it has been proven and will be again 
])roven by my representatives, if my life should fail to be spared, 
that there has been special causes for their action independent 
of, and having no relation whatever to the " True American" 
or its doctrines. Your advice with regard to my personal safety 
is worthy of the source whence it emanated, and meets with 
ihe same contempt from me which the purposes of your mission 
excite. Go tell your secret conclave of cowardly assassins that 
C. M. Clay knows his rights and how to defend them. 

C. M. Clay. 

Lexing-ton, August 15, 1845. 

Kentuckians : 

You see this attempt of these tyrants, worse 
than the thirty despots who lorded it over the once free Athens, 
now to enslave you. Men who regard law^men who regard 
all their liberties as not to be sacrificed to a single pecuniary 
interest, to say the least, of doubtful value — lovers of justice — 
enemies of blood — laborers of all classes^you for whom I have 



292 THE WEITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

sacrificed so much, where will you be found when the battle 
between liberty and slavery is to be fought ? I cannot, I will 
not, I dare not question on which side you will be found. If 
you stand by me like men, our country shall yet be free, but if 
you falter now, I perish with less regret when I remember that 
the people of my native state, of whom I have been so proud, 
and whom I have loved so much, are already slaves. 

C. M. Clay. 
Lexington, August 15, 1845. 



No. 11. 



To THE Citizens of Fayette County, and the City 
OF Lexington : 

As my opponents, notwithstanding my sickness, will not wait 
to hear my plan of emancipation, and seem determined to pre- 
cipitate measures to extremity, without giving me a hearing, 
and as they insist upon branding me as an " abolitionist "^ — a 
name full of unknown and strange terrois and crimes to the 
mass of our people — I will make a brief statement of my plan 
of emancipation. Although I regard slavery as opposed to na- 
tural right, I consider laiv, and its inviolate observance, in all 
cases whatever, as the only safeguards of my oimi liberty 
and the liberty of others. I therefore, have not given, and 
will not give, my sanction to any mode of freeing the slaves, 
which does not conform strictly to the Laws and Constitution 
of my state. And, as I am satisfied that there is no power under 
the present Constitution, by which slavery can be reached effi- 
ciently, I go for a Convention. In a Convention — which is po- 
litically omnipotent, I would say that every female slave, born 
after a certain day and year, should be free at the age of twen- 
ty-one. This, in the course of time, would gradually, and at 
last, make our state truly free. I would further say, that, af- 
ter the expiration of thirty years, more or less, the state should 
provide a fund, either from her own resources, or from her por- 
tion in the public lands, for the purchase of the existing gene- 
ration of slaves, in order that the white laboring portion of our 
community might be as soon as possible freed from the ruinous 



APPEAL.— NO. II. - .., 293 

competition of slave labor. The funds should be applied after 
this manner : Commissioners shall be appointed in each county, 
who shall, on oath, value all slaves that shall be voluntarily 
presented to them for that purpose. To the owners of these 
slaves shall be issued, by the proper authorities, scrip, bearing 
interest at the rate of six per cent., to the amount of the value 
of their slaves ; and to the redemption of said scrip this fund 
shall be applied, principle and interest. By this plan the pre- 
sent habits of our people would not be suddenly broken in upon, 
whilst, at the same time, we believe that it would bring slavery 
to almost utter extinction in our state, within the next thirty 
years. 

With regard to the free blacks, I would not go for forcible ex- 
pulsion, but I would encourage, by all the pecuniary resources 
that the state had to spare, a voluntary emigration to such 
countries and climates as nature seems particularly to have de- 
signed for them. 

With regard to the political equality of the blacks with the 
whites, I should oppose in Convention their admission to the 
right of suffrage. As minors, women, foreigners, denizens, and 
divers other classes of individuals are, in all well regulated go- 
vernments, forbidden the elective franchise, so 1 see no good rea- 
son why the blacks, until they become able to exercise the right 
to vote with proper discretion, should be admitted to the right of 
suffrage. " Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof" The time 
might come, with succeeding generations, when there would be 
no objection on the part of the whites, and none on account of 
disqualification of the blacks, to their being admitted to the 
same political platform ; but let after generations act for them- 
selves. The idea of amalgamation and social equality resulting 
from emancipation, is proven by experience to be untrue and 
absurd. It may be said by some, what right would a Conven- 
tion have to liberate the unborn ? They who ask equit)^, the 
lawyers say, themselves must do equity ; and whilst the slave- 
holders have rights, they must remember the blacks also have 
rights ; and surely, in the compromise which we have proposed 
between the slave and the slaveholder, the slaveholder has the 
lion's share. 

I have thus, in a very rambhng, and feeble, unsatisfactory 
manner, given something of an outline of the plan which I had 
intended to present. . 



294 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

It may be that my paper has not been conducted in the 
most pacific manner, but is there not cause for mutual re- 
proach between myself and the public, in which I am placed? 
And those who now most denounce me, should remember that 
my paper was denounced, even in advance, in the full avowal 
of all the incendiary purposes which my enemies now affect to 
impute to me. I am willing to take warning from friends or 
enemies for the future conduct of my paper, und whilst I am 
ready to restrict myself in the latitude of discussion of the ques- 
tion, I NEVER WILL, VOLUNTARILY, ABANDON A RICiHT OR 
YIELD A PRINCIPLE. 

August 16, 1845. 



Cassius M. Clay. 



No. III. 
To THE Public. 

Since writing my last handbill concerning a Convention, I 
have seen the handbill put out by Henry Johnson, Thomas H. 
Waters, and Dudley M. Craig, committee, and Beverly A. Hicks, 
chairman. I thank God, that in his mercy, I am not yet " mad," 
although these men, the public will perceive, since they know 
the state of my health, have done all in their power possible, to 
destroy not only my reason but my hfe : for I have had the 
typhoid fever for thirty-three days, during which time, almost 
incessantly, my brain has been affected. It will be perceived 
that they do not characterize their meeting as a private caucus, 
which all Lexington know it was. And I now thank God that 
a lifetime's regard for my word will enable me, I feel confident, 
whilst I am lying on my back unable to hold a pen, and dic- 
tating all these handbills which I have put forth, unable to pro- 
cure authority and testimony to sustain it, to use with the power 
and truth of evidence, my bare assertion against a thousand 
calumniators. When I appeal to laborers for help, in my 
handbill, and I say, I meant white laborers and no others, all 
who know me will believe what I say. And all who do not 
know me — ^wheri they remember that every blood relation I have 
in the world that I know of, and every connexion, are slave- 
holders, and that with all these, with few exceptions, I am upon 



ArPEAL.— NO. III. ■ 295 

terms of the most harmonious and friendly feeUng and associa- 
tion, although we differ about this thing of slavery — they will 
also know, that I speak the truth. Yes, I say it, the publishers 
of this handbill believe it and know it. If these men have had 
a six-pounder cannon and some sixty or one hundred balls, as 
I am credibly informed, ready to batter down my office, before 
the publication of this editorial of which they complain, it is 
proven to every honest man that they are now playing upon me 
the story of the "wolf and the lamb." Whether they '•'■are 
putting forth a counter manifesto^ or advertising for recruits^* 
not only from our own city and county, but from adjoining coun- 
ties, let the public judge. They say that I am "associated" 
with the abolitionists of the North.* The gentlemen either 

* From the Ky. Commonwealth. 
Cassius M. Clay's Position in regard to Slavery. 

We insert the following letter from Mr. C. M. Clay, at his request, in order 
that his true position, which has been entirely misconceived by many, may be 
correctly understood by tlie country. Those who have supposed him an aboli- 
tionist, in the sense of the term, as commonly understood in political circles, 
will sec that they have misunderstood him. 

T. B. Stevenson, Esq. : 

Sir : — 1 ask the liberty to make, through your columns, a summary state- 
ment of my views upon the subject of slavery. By a portion of the people of 
this state, I never expect to be fairly represented. To the great mass of the 
jieople who have no interest in suppressing truth, I would appeal against the 
calumnies of unscrupulous partizans. 

Slavery is a municipal institution. It exists by no other right and tenure, 
than the Constitution of Kentucky. 

I am opposed to depriving slaveholders of their slaves by any other than 
Constitutional and legal means. Of course, then, I have no sympathy for those 
who would liberate the slaves of Kentucky in other ways. I have no con- 
nexion with any man, or set of men, who would sanction or undertake the 
illegal liberation of slaves ; and I feel bound, by my allegiance to the state of 
Kentucky, to resist, by force, if necessary, all such efforts. 

Whilst I hold that the United States Constitution has no power to establish 
slavery in the District of Columbia, or in the Territories, or in any place of its 
exclusive supremacy ; so I contend, that in the states, once admitted into the 
Union, and thereby become sovereign and iiidependent. Congress has no power 
or right to interfere with or touch slavery, without the legitimate consent of 
the states. 

I believe that the addition of new slave stales, or stave territory, to this Union, 
is unconstitutional and impossible. 

1 am the avowed and uncompromising enemy of slavery, and shall never 
cease to use all Constitutional, and honorable, and just means, to cause its ex- 



296 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

mean political association, or nothing ; for personal association 
at this distance is impossible. I utterly deny that I have any 
political association with them, other than that the opinions of 
all political parties whatever, meet and mingle upon some com- 
mon grounds. In my prospectus, which was published for 
months in this city, I said that I should form alliance with no 
political party, but act as a " state party," so that then, once 
more, if I speak truth, these men do not. In the " True Ame- 
rican," July 29th, in my letter to the Cincinnati Anti-Slavery 
Convention, I declined to be present, and in the same letter I 
used the following language : " I abide the destiny of that party 
in which I have grown to manhood, until some other, number- 
ing more friends of liberty than we, shall give indication of a 
more speedy success. I claim to be a whig, because I stand 
upon the same ground of the illustrious declarators of 1776." 
Now, my countrymen, is not here most triumphant refutation 
of the assassin calumnies of these men ? For if I have said to 
the abolitionists themselves that I am a whig, whilst they were 
supporting me as one of their party ^ how could I hope to be 
estimated by them in any other light than as a base and false 
political adventurer. That I have many subscribers among 
them, is true ; but to say that I am " sustained " by them, in 
the sense here meant, is false. I believe that they do not com- 
pose more than one-fourth part of my subscribers in the Northern 
states ; and I would far rather have their support, than that of 
such men as one of this committee, who comes blubbering like 
a great fat baby into secret caucus, calling himself my " friend," 
whilst at the same time, as soon as my back is turned, he stabs 
me to the vitals. Now, my countrymen ! when you remember 

tinction iu Kentucky, and its reduction to its constitutional limits in the United 



Born a Kentuckian and a slaveholder, I have no prejudices nor enmities to 
gratify; but, impelled by a sense of self respect, love of justice, and the high- 
est expediency, I shall ever maintain that liberty is our only safety. 

For the freedom of speech and of the press, I never shall cease to battle 
while life lasts. If there is any Kentuckian so base as to yield these Constitu- 
tional and glorious privileges, vv-ithout which it is the veriest mockery to talk 
of being a free people, I envy him not. A slave to slaves, let him sodden in 
his infamy. With such I hold no fellowship ; from such I ask no quarter. All 
I ask is an open field and a fair fight. Your obedient servant, 

Cassius M. Clay. 

Frankfort, Ky., Jan. 8, 1845. 



APPEAL.— NO. III. 297 

that such far-seeing and clear-headed statesmen, whose names 
are appended to this handbill, and who have undertaken to be- 
come the guardians of tlie honor and interests of this state, must 
have seen tliese written declarations of mine, you must be con- 
vinced that they wilfully misrepresent me on this occasion. If 
" defiance and threats " weie my earliest heralds, they came, if 
report be true, from one of this committee. They were the same 
heralds of " defiance and threats " which now once more come 
from them ; and if Lexington be true to the glorious name she 
bears, and if Fayette be true to the glorious name she bears, 
they will meet with the same fate — a dishonored grave of un- 
disturbed centuries. I am satisfied to trust the explanation of 
my editorial of the last paper to the people whom I address. 
But one more suggestion, in addition to those which I have 
already made, if they torture my meaning from the general 
context, which none but clear-headed men as these will do — ^not 
upon mere verbal, and grammatical criticism, and literal inter- 
pretation—could I have meant the blacks not in the South ; for 
there are five millions of whites to three of blacks — not in Ken- 
tucky, for there are six whites to one black. So, then, if a class 
is to be taken, and choice is to be made between the whites and 
blacks, even then the whites are the "masses." No, these men 
cannot, they do not, believ^e what they say. They say that I 
deny the validity of the laws in one of the most important 
'• of all its relations." This is absolutely false. Turn to the 
number of the American in which Thomas Metcalfe's letter was 
published, and strange to say they will there find an article from 
my pen, where I maintain with all the power of intellect of 
wliich I am capable, against the Albany Patriot — one of those 
abolitionists with whom these men say I am allied^the propo- 
sition in relation to slavery, that " that is property which the 
law makes property." It is one thing to admit the legality of 
a thing, and another thing to deny its justice. Oh! Henry, 
Thomas, Dudley, Beverley, surely ye arc ''Daniels come to 
judgment !" To say that " regard for the j)uhlic peace" in- 
duces Henry, and Thomas, and Dudley, and Beverley, to 
shoulder their muskets, and drag one poor editor out of his 
bed, when they know that he can neither pull a trigger nor 
wield a pen, and shed his blood — thus violating not only the 
express language of the Constitution, but every principle of 
right, religion, and justice — is about as logical as it is magnani- 
mous, or likely to be carried into execution. 



298 THE WRITIiNGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

But if I am mistaken, and an outrage is to be perpetrated 
which will stain, with eternal dishonor, Fayette's heretofore 
proud and fai)- escutcheon, I pray you, people of Lexington and 
Fayette, get some men of more truth, of more sense, of more 
eloquence than these men possess, to give you an excuse to say 
that you were driven from your propriety to the perpetration of 
this deed, by the power of genius, which can at times obscure 
the clearest intellects, and madden the noblest hearts into 
crime. 

Cassius M. Clay. 

August 18th, 1845. 



No. IV. 

LEXINGTON, AUGUST 18, 184 5. 

The Chairman of the Public Meeting assembled to- 
day, WILL please lay BEFORE IT THE FOLLOWING 

Communication : 

FelloiD-citizens of Lexington, and County ofFmjctte: Being 
unable from the state of my health, to be present at your meet- 
ing, and even unable to hold a pen, having been sick for thirty- 
five days with the typhoid fever, I dictate to an amanuensis, a 
few lines for your just consideration. Having been the unwill- 
ing cause, in part, of the present excitement in my county, and 
feeling, as I do, respect for the safety and happiness of others as 
well as my own, I voluntarily come forward and do all I con- 
scientiously can do for your quiet and satisfaction. I treated 
the communication from the private caucus with burning con- 
tempt, arising not only from their assuming over me a power 
which would make me a slave, but from a sense of the deep 
personal indignity with which their unheard-of assumptions 
were attempted to be carried into execution. But to yovi — a far 
differently organized body, and a constitutional assemblage of 
citizens — I feel that it is just and proper that I should answer at 
your bar ; and as I am not in a state of health to carry on an 
argument or vindicate properly my own rights, I shall, volun- 



APPEAL.— NO. IV. 299 

tarily, before any action is taken on your part, make such ex- 
planation as I deem just and proper. 

During my sickness my paper has been conducted by some 
friends. The leading article in the last number, which I am 
told is the great cause of the pubhc disquietude, I have never 
read ; because at the time it was put to press I could not have 
undergone the fatigue of reading such a paper through. Al- 
though it was read over to me at the time, yet I am fully per- 
suaded now, that had I been in health it would not have 
been admitted into my columns. But I felt the less hesitancy in 
admitting it, because it has been my avowed policy heretofore to 
admit free discussion upon the subject of slavery, by slavehold- 
ers themselves, and the author of this article is largely interested 
in that kind of property. You have seen before this time that the 
course of policy which I commend, myself, to the state, is 
widely dilTcrent, in many essential points, from this author's 
views. The article written by myself, and published in the 
same paper, was written a few days after the leader was in 
type, and which has also been the cause of so much dissatisfac- 
tion, the justice of which, to some extent, I am willing to 
acknowledge. I assure you, upon the honor of a man, it was 
never intended to mean, or to bear the construction which my 
enemies have given it. I was pursuing the rellections of my 
own mind, without thinking of the misconstruction that could 
be put upon my language. 

Had I l)een in the vigor of health, I should have avoided the 
objectionable expressions, for by sharply guarding against the 
cavils of my opponents, I would best guard at the same time 
against anything which could be considered of an incendiary 
character. I cannot say that the paper from the beginning, 
has been conducted in the manner I could have wished. 
The cause of this it is not now necessary for me to mention. 
Satisfied, however, from past experience, that the free discussion 
of the subject of slavery is liable to many objections which I 
did not anticipate, and which I had allowed in an excess of 
liberality, arising, no doubt, from the fact that I had been denied 
the columns of the other presses of the country myself, I pro- 
pose in future very materially to restrict the latitude of discus- 
sion. I shall admit into my paper no article upon this subject, 
for which I am not willing to be held responsible. This, you 
perceive, will very nmch narrow the ground ; for my plan of 



300 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY, 

emancipation which I put forth a few days ago, is of the most 
gradual character. My other views put forth there also, are 
such as I learn are not at all offensive to the great mass of our 
people. By this course, I expect to achieve two objects, to be 
enabled to carry on the advocacy of those principles and mea- 
sures which I deem of vital importance to our state without 
molestation : and to avoid subjecting the people to the appre- 
hensions and excitement which are now unhappily upon us. 
You may properly ask, perhaps, why was not this thing done 
before ? 1 reply, that I did not foresee any such consequences 
as have resulted from a different course. The denunciations of 
the public press on both sides, I conceived, and am still of the 
same opinion, arose from the desire to make for both parties 
political capital. And you will see also, when the excitement 
is worn off, that there have been many selfish purposes sought 
to be accomplished at the expense of your peace and mine, by 
men who are professing to be actuated by nothing but patriotic 
motives. 

Having said thus much upon the conduct of my paper, I 
miust say also, that my constitutional rights I shall 
NEVER ABANDON. I feel as deeply interested in this commu- 
nity as any other man in it. No man is, or has a connexion, 
more deeply interested, in the prosperity of this state, than my- 
self. You ought not, you cannot, if you are just to me as you 
are to yourselves, ask me to do that wliich you would not do. 
I know not, in reality, what may be the state of public feeling. 
I am told it is very much inflamed ; I, therefore, directed my 
publisher, after the publication of to-morrow's paper, to ex- 
clude all matter upon the subject of slavery, until, if my health 
is restored, I shall be able myself to take the helm. 

My office and dwelling are undefended, except by the laws of 
my country, to the sacred inviolability of which I confide my- 
self and property ; and of these laws you are the sole guard- 
ians. You have the power to do as you please.* You will so 
act, however, I trust, that this day shall not be one accursed 
to our county and state. Your obedient servant, 

Cassius M. Clay. 

* My enemies have affected to say that in saying they had the " power" I 
yielded the right. How could I yield the right when I had jnst said I never 
would "abandon" it? How could the day he " accursed" if right was done? 
Of course, physical power only was meant. C, 1848. 



C. M. CLAY'S APPEAL.— NO. V. 301 

LEXINGTON, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 7. 

Our Appeal. 

They, who on the eighteenth day of August, 1845, rose in 
arms, overpowered the civil authorities, and estabhshed an ir- 
responsible despotism upon the Constitutional liberties of this 
commonwealtli, in justification of their conduct "appeal to 
Kentucky and to the world." So be it. Let Kentucky and 
the world judge. 

^Yhen the public peace is disturbed, when the laws are de- 
fied, when the Constitution is overthrown, and when, by the 
avowal of murderous purposes, natural right and Divine jus- 
tice are impiously violated — not the loss of property, not the in- 
dividual wrong and suffering, not even the shedding of blood, 
are to be weighed a moment. But the great principles of Uh- 
crty only are to be borne in mind, whilst individuals, however 
high or low, are to be forgotten. If it shall turn out that these 
principles were by me violated or endangered, then was it right 
that my house should have been rudely entered by personal 
enemies, threatening me with the dread alternative of death or 
dishonor. Then was it right that the sick chamber should 
not awake in the bosoms of the stern vindicators of the law 
some feeling of pitying sympathy, or magnanimous forbearance. 
Then was it right tliat my wife and children should for long 
days and nights suffer the terrors of impending ruin. Then 
was it right that I should have my property confiscated. Then 
was it right that I should be outlawed and exiled from the 
land of my birth, and the buried ashes of my own loved blood, 
and ever cherished friends. But if, on the other hand, they, 
and not I, have done this deed, then let me be restored to the 
confidence of my countrymen ; to the security of the laws ; to 
the inviolate sanctity of the home of my native land : and let 
them be consigned, not to a felon's fate, which is their due by 
the Constitution and laws of Kentucky, but live out their days 
with the reflection, that the most they can hope for in the fu- 
ture, is, that their dishonored names will be swallowed up in the 
magnanimous forgetfulness of coming generations. 

In the spring of 1845, I, in connexion with some other Ken- 
tuckians made proposals to publish a paper, devoted io free dis- 



302 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

cussio7i, and gradual emancipation in Kentucky. On the third 
day of June, of the same year, the True American was issued 
from the press, having about three hundred subscribers in this 
state, and about seventeen hundred in the other states. On the 
twelfth day of August, 1845, the last number of this paper was 
sent to about seven hundred subscribers in Kentucky, and 
about twenty-seven hundred in the other states of the Union. 
These facts are verified by the books of the office, which friend 
or foe is at liberty to examine. That my readers in Kentucky 
should have run up, in this short space of about two months, 
from three to seven hundred, in the face of all the violence and 
proscription of the enemies of emancipation, voluntarily, with- 
out any agencies, and without the distribution of circulars or 
papers on my part, is a most extraordinary circumstance. And 
when we reflect that about twenty persons read the paper of 
each subscriber — making fourteen thousand readers in Ken- 
tucky — it proves beyond all controversy, that the principles and 
tone of my press were taking a powerful hold upon the minds 
and affections of the people. 

The democratic papers were comparatively silent. The whig 
press was largely in my favor. The Christian Intelligencer 
soon raised also the standard of emancipation. The people of 
Louisville had taken the initiatory step for starting a similar pa- 
per there. A democratic print of the Green River section — the 
most pro-slavery part of the state, had copied an article from the 
True American, showing the ruinous competition of slave labor 
with that of the whites, and seemed ready to wage a common 
war. For the first time since the formation of the Constitution 
of tlie state was a political party organized for the overthrow of 
slavery in a legal way ; and in the most populous city in the 
commonwealth a candidate was announced ready to fight the 
battle upon the stump. A convention of the friends of emanci- 
pation was proposed to be held on the fourth day of July, 1846, 
and met the approval of many able and patriotic citizens. The 
principal movers in this cause were slaveholders, so also were a 
majority of the readers of the true American. And the great 
mass of laborers, who are not habitual readers of newspapers, 
began to hear, to consider, and to learn their rights, and were 
preparing to maintain them. So that all things, moving stea- 
dily towards the same glorious end, proclaimed, that Kentucky 

MUST BE FREE ! 



C. M. CLAY'S APPEAL.— NO. V. 303 

Previous to the issuing of the niutli number of the True 
American, I was taken sick with the typhoid fever. A few- 
friends edited the paper till the eleventh number was in press, 
in which was a leading article written by a slaveholder, and the 
following editorial written by myself.* 

After I had written this, a ride to the office caused a relapse. 
Whilst I lay prostrate with disease, it was told me a few 
minutes before three o'clock on the fourteenth day of August, that 
there was to be held at that hour, a meeting of the citizens at 
the court house, in Lexington, for the purpose of suppressing 
the True American. I immediately rose and dressed myself, 
.and in opposition to the remonstrances of my family, and at the 
risk of my life from the exertion. I determined to confront my 
enemies face to face, and vindicate my cause at all hazards. 
At the court house I found about thirty individuals, including 
a few who came in after I left ; their names were taken down 
by a couple of friends and are now in my possession. All these 
men had grown from political opponents to personal enemies, 
because of my devotion to the whig cause, except two, "a 
whig" and "Junius," who were influenced, no doubt, by feel- 
ings of revenge on account of the castigation which I had given 
them in the first number of the True American, for their menace 
of the murderous infliction of lynch law. After a silence of 
about half an hour, E. Q,. Say re said he would speak out just 
the same as if I was not present ; he was for suppressing the 
True American as libellous, by legal means. Henry Johnson, a 
cotton planter, and the brother of R. M. Johnson, said he under- 
stood this meeting was to have been equally composed of whigs 
and democrats, and for one, he would take no action against 
this abolition press, unless the whigs came up boldly and shared 
the responsibihty. Thos. F. Marshall, the apostate whig, and 
late hybrid candidate for congress, said he understood this to 
be a public meeting,! and was here by an invitation ; he held the 
True American in his hand, and would read what he conceived 
to be the cause of the public excitement. He then read the 
article written by me, and took his seat. 

Up to this period, no whig had made his appearance. D. 



* See pamphlet. Lex., 1845. 

t In a pamphlet published afterwards under his signature, he says he got up 
the meeting, aud that it was secre/ .' 



304 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

M. Craig now made his entrance ; he was a whig : but the 
supposed author of " a whig," as before stated. He was in a 
most lachrymose mood — avowed himself my personal friend, 
but at the same time his determination to use his musket 
against my life : he said this was a private meeting, and in 
this he was clamorously seconded by the whole mass. During 
all this time I lay upon a bench, only at intervals being able to 
sit up. I said I was far from intruding myself upon any set of 
men — that I had understood this was a public meeting — I threw 
myself upon their magnanimity — I acknowledged 1 was in the 
midst of enemies, yet trusted I would be allowed to explain the 
article read by Mr. Marshall, which, from his few comments, I 
found was utterly misconceived, and tortured from its true 
meaning. I was promptly refused a hearing. Faint, and with 
lips parched, 1 turned to T. F. Marshall, as the most chivalric 
of my enemies — a man whom I had met but a few months be- 
fore in this same court house, in the presence of an impartial 
audience of my countrymen, and driven to the wall, upon this 
same subject of the liberties of men — a man from whom I had 
extorted an open avowal, " that he had (putting his hand to his 
heart), the most profound respect for the gentleman and his 
opinions and arguments^ so new and strong as to demarid 
his m,ore deliberate consideration.^^ Who coldly replied : 
" That he had no more power here than I, being a single in- 
dividual." I then protested against his construction of my 
writings, and retired. 

Exhausted by this effort, I returned once more to my bed. 
But feeling the necessity of iiieeting the vindictive machinations 
of my enemies, I dictated a handbill to the people, (No. 1) 
which was taken down by my wife, explaining the offensive edi- 
torial, and asking a suspension of puljlic opinion and action, till 
my health would allow me to be heard.* 

I had hardly got tluough with this when my chamber was 
entered by Mr. T. II. Wateis, my personal enemy, with the fol- 
lowing letter : 

(See letter.) 



* In this handbill I briefly narrate the circumstances of the meeting, as hero 
stated. D. M. Craig being the only whig present, I supposed it a party affair, 
and so stated it. B. W. Dudley, and 1. W. Hunt had not then come in, who 
are whigs, but are said to have been present after I left there. 



C. M. CLAY'S APPEAL.— NO. V. 305 

I now saw that the union of which H. Johnson had spoken, 
had been consummated, and that a portion of the whig party, 
sure enough, were about to give me up as a sacrifice, to the mahce 
of foes, made by venturing my hfe in their cause.* Being de- 
termined to die in the defence of my birth-right, tlie freedom of 
the press, and the hberty of speech, I appended this short ap- 
peal to all true men and friends of lav\' : and sent it to the 
press : 

(See No. I.) 

I immediately made preparations for the defence of my office 
—warned my chosen friends to be ready, to which they man- 
fully assented — wrote my will^and next morning sent my 
camp bed to the office, as I was unable to sit up. I had thus 
made every preparation to meet these men of chivalry, who on 
Monday ventured to hurl defiance at a prostrate foe. They had 
demanded of me to give them an answer, to discontinue my 
paper, or that after three o'clock on that day my "personal 
safety " was lost ! Did they come up to their threats ? Not 
they. They found I was still able to drag my feeble body to 
the place of attack, and rally around me many brave hearts. 

With five hundred or more " unanimous " men in the court 
house, on Friday, at three o'clock, they basely cowered : gave 
up all hope of a successful attack, and put off the contest for 
three days, well-knowing that before then, from the report of 
my physicians, I would be dead, or unable to head my friends. 
Tliey abandon the secret conclave, and appeal to the jniblic. 
On Saturday, the inflammatory piece, " a Kentuckian," made 
its api)earance, and on the same day, they issued a long and 
lying handbill signed by the committee, to the " People of Lex- 
ington, and county of Fayette." Yet they send this with 
runners and private letters to the adjoining- connties^ calling in 
the printed bills upon all the enemies of liberty to rally to the 
'• suppression of the True American," but writing on the backs 
of the same, " to hell with Clay." Seeing that my handbills 
were relieving the public mind in this county and city, and giv- 

* The part wliich the Johusons took in Wickliffe's and Brown's attempt to as- 
sassinate ine, a few years ago, is generally believed to have arisen solely from 
political motives of getting nd of a formidable oiii)oiient. The system they im- 
ported from Scott county, was to bully opponents in the canvass or at the polls: 
and this game they were beginning to play quite successfully with the friends 
of Garret Davis, till the afftiir at Russell's Cave, tanght them that impunity 
would not await them. 

20 



306 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

ing way to iheir fears of being entirely thwarted in their mur- 
derous jjurposes, tliey issued another handbill, calling for help 
from the " adjoining counties," from the whole district where 
Marshall had but just finished a most bitter canvass, and where 
it was too well supposed that there would be many despera- 
does ready for any deed. In their pamphlet, they say this last 
handbill was authorized by the meeting of Friday, which is 
false : the resolution, as reported by them, confines their call 
to " the people of Fayette and city of Lexington !" 

Finding that the "^ecre^ conclave of cowardly assassijis" 
had backed out from their purpose of making my " personal 
safety " " involved in my answer," and had appealed to a pub- 
lic " constitutional " meeting, I told my friends to disarm the 
office, and leave it to the untrammeled decision of the citizens. 

I then wrote my plan of emancipation, addressed to the 
people : 

(See No. II.) 

On Sunday I replied to the committee's handbill of Saturday 
(in No. III.), showing their falsehoods, and denouncmg them, 
and appealing to the justice of the public, at whose bar I in- 
tended to appear, if possible. Late on Sunday night, finding 
myself still more than ever prostrated, and despairing of being 
able to be present at the meeting on Monday, I dictated this 
last handbill, read the proof-sheets an hour after midnight, and 
had it circulated Monday morning, fearing that if it was put 
off to be read in manuscript, it would be suppressed or unheard : 
(See No. IV.) 

Here, then, w^as as conciliatory an offer as any honorable man 
could ask. I wrote just as I would have spoken, had I been 
present in a mixed audience, where a few were attempting to 
hurry on the many to thoughtless deeds of irrevocable infamy. 
Had I been personally severe in the " True American," on some 
citizens high in the confidence of the state, I but spoke the real 
sentiments of my heart when I regretted it. Had I, when worn 
down with disease, with no friend of similar views to stand by 
my bedside and give me counsel upon which I could implicitly 
rely, given utterance incautiously, to language which might by 
any possibilty be the cause of disaffection among the slaves, I 
was willing to be more guarded in the future. Had I danger- 
ously given, when incapable of judging, too much liberty to 



C. M. CLAY'S APPEAL.— NO. V. 307 

correspondents, who are not always the best qualified to know 
the effects of their reflections upon a community surrounded b}^ 
a large slave population, I was wiUing, for the future to sit in 
more restrictive judgment upon the freedom and latitude of dis- 
cussion. All these concessions were freely, frankly, and in good 
faith, made to save my country's cause and mine. Kentuckians ! 
Americans ! was not this enough ? Oh no ; it was not the 
manner but the thing ; it was not the loords but actions which 
they feared. They wanted me to say that I would cease the 
discussion of the subject of slavery; for well did they see from 
a brief experience, that slavery and a free press could not live 
together. They wanted me to abandon the exercise of my legal 
rights. Is any man so base as to say I ought to have yielded ? 
No, my countrymen, remembering what state had given me 
birth — what I owed my country — what was due my suffering 
fellow-men — and my obligations to a just God — I replied in 
words which I supposed to be my last to man, " nnj Constitu- 
tional rights I shall never abandon.''' But, horrible and fatal 
necessity ! slavery knows not the language of remorse, and can- 
not indulge the undying instincts of generous magnanimity 
over a defenceless foe.* She had the decency to listen to my 
appeal, and I am told that tears stood in the eyes of many — 
yet the deed must be done, and with melancholy, yet firm despair, 
she bent herself to the task — and the press fell ! and Ken- 
tuckians ceased to be free ! 

On the morning of the 18th of August, George R. Trotter, 
Judge of the city of Lexington, issued a legal process enjoining 
the " True American" office and all its appurtenances ; and on 
demand I yielded up the keys to the city marshal. At eleven 
o'clock on the same day about twelve hundred persons assem- 
bled in the comt house yard ; a chairman and secretary were 
appointed : a manifesto and resolutions were reported by T. F. 
Marshall, and adopted. A committee of sixty were appointed t 
to take down the press and type, and send them to Cincinnati. 
The committee proceeded to the " True American" oflSce, where 

* Every one of these handbills was dictated by me to an amanuensis, whilst 
my hands and head were continually bathed with cold water, to keep the fever 
down to a point below delirium. Every relative believed I would be mur- 
dered on Monday, and all, but my wife and mother, advised me to yield up the 
liberty of the press ; but I preferred rather to die. 

t James B. Clay, the sou of Henry Clay, was chairman of this committee. 0. 



308 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

the mayor of the city, (who by law has the Avhole mihtia of the 
city at his command) James Logue, warned them that they 
were doing an illegal act, which he was bound to resist, but 
that he was overpowered by superior force, and then yielded up 
possession and the keys. After boxing up the press and type, 
and all the furniture of the office, and sending them to Cincin- 
nati, they reported again to the meeting at the court house, at 
three o'clock ; and after a speech from Thomas Metcalfe, dis- 
avowing all connexion with abolitionism on the part of the 
Whigs of Kentucky, the meeting adjourned. 

Thus, on the 18th day of August, 1845, were the Constitu- 
tional liberties of Kentucky overthrown ; and an irresponsible 
despotism of slaveholding aristocracy established on their ruins. 
They who did the deed call it " dignified," and they supposed 
that its dignity would shield them from the indignation and 
curses of men, did they ? No, they were not so contemptibly 
silly as that. They found it necessary in order to cover up the 
enormity of their crime — (murder, cool and premeditated, and 
only not consummated because no resistance was oflered, ac- 
cording to their own admission, but in reality, because they 
found hundreds of brave men looking on in sullen silence, ready 
to die in my defence) — to publish a manifesto to the world, full 
of darkly studied and damning calumny, in order to shut me 
off from the sympathies of men and abate the horror of their 
criminal avowal and dastardly revenge. 

They supposed, no doubt, that I would either fall by disease 
or violence ; and, as " dead men tell no tales," it would be easy 
to blacken my memory, and cover up their own infamy. This 
last finishing touch was needed to complete the dark portrait of 
perpetual slavery — that mankind looking upon this picture of 
slaveholding cruelty, wrong and smooth-faced hypocrisy might 
be no longer deceived for ever ! 

In this manifesto, and indictment, and verdict, I am accused: 

T. Of being an abolitionist in its southern sense: my northern 
visit is imputed to me as a crime : and I am declared returning 
home '• the organ and agent of an incendiary sect." 

II. I am accused of desiring to put into practical operation 
the sentiments of the leading article of the "True American" 
of the 11th number, where I am spoken of as the very author 
of the same — "The w^estevn apostle transcends if possible his 
mission." 



C. M. CLAY'S APPEAL.— NO. V. 309 

III. It is imputed to me as a crime that I had prepared to 
defend my property and press against the illegal violence of the 
people. 

IV. I am accused of crime in characterizing American slavery 
as " the lowest, the basest, the most unmitigated the world had 
seen ; " of being a " daring incendiary, hurhng his fire-brands of 
murder and of lust;" of "responding as a haughty and infu- 
riated fanatic, in terms of outrage, to a committee of gentlemen, 
who made a wonderfully mild request," and of " denying the 
right of the citizens to consult together on such a subject ; " of 
being a " madman," and of " preparing himself for a civil war, 
in which he expected the non-slaveholding laborers, along with 
the slaves, to flock to his standard ; " in calling on the " laborers 
for whom I have sacrificed so much ; " of summoning slaves to 
my help. 

V. I am accused of " attacking the tenure of slave property ; " 
of being " a trespasser " upon slaveholders, and of pushing the 
community to extremity. 

These are cruel charges, and most cruelly have they been 
avenged. Time was when men were heard, tried, and pun- 
ished ; now, being punished, may I yet be heard? 

With regard to the first allegation : I am so far an abolitionist 
as certain men, named George Washington, and Thomas Jef- 
ferson, and some other such " fanatics," who got together in 
1776, and enunciated some very " mad and incendiary" doctrines. 
I followed up the same Washington who, some years after that 
memorable event, declared that so far as his vote could go 
towards the abolition of slavery, it should never be wanting. 
The same Washington, at some time subsequent, liberated all 
liis slaves ; I was " fanatic " enough to follow his advice and 
example, and would have others do likewise, thinking it better 
to be just than rich. On the other hand, I am opposed to the 
violation of law in any respect, either for the purpose of liberating 
a slave, or of murdering by mobs a loyal citizen. I look upon 
the rebels of the 18th, who bore death and arms in their hands 
in order to perpetuate slavery, as infinitely lower in crime and 
infamy than the "incendiary sect," if such there he, who would 
use similar means to liberate the slave. God forbid that I or 
my countrymen should form an alliance with or submit to the 
despotism of either. Neither the liberty party, nor the Garriso- 
nians, hold any such murderous doctrines ; they are monopolized 



310 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

by the " respectable gentlemen " of the 18th of August. The 
Ganisonian abolitionists are non-resistants ; they hold with 
O'Connell that no revolution, or change of government, is worth 
a single drop of luuiian blood. The liberty party holds the doc- 
trine put forth by their convention held at Cincinnati, on the 
11th day of June, 1845. They say of slavery, " we believe that 
its removal can be effected peaceably, constitutionally, without 
real injury to any, with the greatest benefit to all." So that if 
I was an abolitionist, in its broadest sense, there is no cause or 
excuse for any number of respectable gentlemen to come upon 
me and murder me, or trample upon the constitutional liberty 
of speech, and of the press. The whigs call me a whig : I 
wrote to the abolitionists on the 11th of June a letter, published 
in the True American, where I call myself a whig : the aboli- 
tionists call me a whig ; and the democrats call me a whig : I 
hold the principles of the whigs of 1776, "eternal resistance to 
tyrants." And all the renegades, apostates, and tiaitors in Ken- 
tucky shall not shake me from whatever measure I choose to 
advocate, nor from whatever men I choose to ally myself. 

When my visit to the North is imputed to me as a crime, and 
so voted by prominent whigs of Kentucky, it is time that I 
should cease to suffer in reputation for their sakes, and speak 
plainly to them and the nation. Time after time did I receive 
the most urgent invitations from whigs of the North to come 
and aid the cause ; yet as often did I refuse. I had a great work 
to perform, and did not wish to place my opponents on the van- 
tage ground. For well did I know that whatever honors I 
might receive at the North, would be construed by the enemies 
of emancipation in Kentucky into an alliance with aboli- 
tionism. 

When at last, however, serious apprehensions began to be en- 
tertained that Texas would come into the Union with its un- 
equal representation, slavery, and national dishonor, I felt it my 
duty to go and give aid to the cause of my country in whatever 
field of battle she called me. I went by the advice of one of the 
central committee for the whigs of Kentucky ; by special invi- 
tation from about fifty whig clubs of the North ; by the request, 
before and after my departure, of four hundred and sixteen com- 
mittee men, representing clubs, counties, and conventions ; by 
the irresistible persuasion of fifty patriotic whig women of Ohio, 
and, last of all, by the tacit approval of the leader of the whig 



C. M. CLAY'S APPEAL.— NO. V. ; - 311 

party, Henry Clay. The day before I left Lexington, I called 
upon Mr. Clay, and told him the purpose of my mission ; that 
it was thought by our friends, that I could have an influence, 
from my peculiar position, with the anti-slavery, anti-Texas vo- 
ters of the free states, which no other man could, and that I was 
willing to go if I could aid the whig cause. Mr. Clay said no- 
thing, but nodded his head with an approving smile ; and after 
some unimportant conversation he offered me letters of introduc- 
tion, which I declined as unnecessary. Whether I accomplish- 
ed any good there or not remains for others to say. It is enough 
for me to know, if I were vain enough to assume to myself con- 
sideration which belongs to the vital interests which were at 
stake in the canvass, that never did any man of my age in 
America draw together such large and intensely interested au- 
diences. The greatest intellect of the nation, the greatest ora- 
tor of any age, said to me, " They had rather hear you than 
me." The most large-souled, uncompromising man in the 
Union was pleased to compliment me : " We regard you as one 
of the pillars of the great temple of American liberty." I men- 
tion these things not with the silly vanity of self-elation : I 
knew them undeserved, and the overflow of hearts touched 
with sympathy for a man who had suffered proscription in the 
cause of justice and truth — for a man of proper feeling is less 
wounded by censure than unmerited compliment, and loves 
more to deserve praise than to receive it — but because much en- 
mity and denunciation have been poured upon me here, charg- 
ing me with being the cause of Mr. Clay's defeat, by my visit 
to the North, and by forcing him into the Gazette letter ! 

The Speed letter— ay, the Speed letter ! Well, then, if the 
whole truth must be told, the whigs of New York are solely 
responsible for the effect of that letter, if any it had ; they pub- 
lished it vnthout my advice, and in opposition to my consent. 
The letter, on its face, shows itself to be confidential, and not 
intended for the public eye. I have by me, Mr. Speed's letter, 
apologizing for the action of his friends in publishing it in his 
absence, and without his consent, because of the eminent ser- 
vice it was thought it would render the cause. As soon as Mr. 
Clay's letter to the Kentucky Gazette was received by me, I 
immediately sat down to a table and wrote to him, that I was 
grieved if I had misunderstood his sentiments, drawn as my 
opinion was from his whole history, and repeated written decla- 



312 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

rations ; that if he was not favorable to emancipation I regretted 
it on my own account, on his account, and on account of our 
common country. That I was devoting myself unweariedly 
and honestly to the success of that party whose triumph was 
to result in his elevation ; but if he conceived me doing any 
injury to the cause, that I would not again open my mouth in 
the canvass. His answer was that stolen from Horace Greeley, 
and published without my ever having seen it, by the demo- 
cracy of New York. During my whole visit to the North, al- 
though I was cordially received by the anti-slavery men of all 
parties, I addressed but two abolition meetings, and then it 
was to defend the proposition of Henry Clay and the slave- 
holders, that "That is property which the law makes pro- 
perty." Everywhere among abolitionists I made some enemies 
by defending this dogma ; Avhich now, by the disregard of all 
law, avowed on the eighteenth, is of no more effect, but null 
and void. Everywhere, among abohtionists especially, did I 
make enemies by defending Henry Clay. How then dare 
Henry Clay's son, and Kentucky whigs, sit in solemn conclave 
and vote me to be "the organ and agent of an incendiary 
sect ?" and under this pretext, to rob me of my property and 
threaten me with murder ? To my brother whigs throughout 
the Union, I appeal from this ungrateful and calumnious ac- 
cusation. 

The second charge, holding me responsible for being about to 
enforce the sentiments of the author of the leader, in the eleventh 
number of the " True American," who is of their own brother- 
hood, not mine, being a slaveholder, when they had my own 
written opinions before them, utterly different in many essential 
respects, is as false as it is impudent. Denied myself the use 
of the press of all parties, on my return from the North, crimi- 
nally accused in my absence, and not allowed to vindicate 
myself, it would have been strange indeed if I had refused even 
a slaveholder a hearing, who uttered his thoughts boldly and 
honestly. My paper was intended to embody the differing opi- 
nions of all Kentuckians ; and I said in the beginning that all 
the editorials would admit of very variant opinions without 
comment from me. In the same number with this leader, I 
promised in my very next to give my " individual opinions" 
upon emancipation. But these they did not want to hear ; for 
well they knew that they would give the lie to all they had 



C. M. CLAY'S APPEAL.— NO. V. 313 

been saying about my abolitionism, for months and years. 
Have our masters grown so fastidious that they cannot bear 
simple propositions, which are safe and peaceable, stated, with- 
out becoming mad with impotent rage? For none of these 
" respectable gentlemen " have said that the leader was either 
unjust or imtriie, or that it was incendiary. How then, even if 
I had endorsed it, could it have been imputed to me as a crime ? 
In regard to the third allegation : it is indeed a strange state 
of civil society, when the very basis upon w^iich all associations 
of men are formed, is imputed to a man as a crime. If self- 
defence which is so much an axiom : so commanding the in- 
stinctive approbation of all men and times as to be known as 
the " first law of nature," has to be defended, I might as well 
quit the field in despair. But if it was not a virtue of the 
highest order, to resist mobs, which are violators of the peace, 
and in derogation of the dignity and safety of the common- 
w^ealth, I need l)ut bring the National and state Constitutions to 
my defence, which place the right of the citizen " to bear arms 
in self-defence," beyond the power of legislation, higher and 
more sacred than the Constitution itself I w^as threatened with 
mobs by all the city papers, before I began to publish the "True 
American"; then, and not till then, did I prepare for defence. 
Against partial mobs, emeutes, and black Indians, whether one 
or a thousand, I was prepared to defend myself; yes, against 
the " secret conclave of cowardly assassins " I prepared myself, 
and dared them to the onset ; and as I anticipated in the begin- 
ning, by them I stood unharmed, only because I was defended. 
Born free and independent, with my name associated eternally 
with the commonwealth, whose honor and safety I was bound 
by the laws of God and nature to support. I did not come secretly 
sneaking as a traitor with bated breath, whispering treason 
and mnrder ; but glorying in my birthright, I proudly spread 
my banner, " God and Liberty," to the eyes of men, and vowed 
my determination to defend it or die. But in that once proud 
state, for whose best interests I was ever willing to risk my all, 
I never anticipated a total overthrow of the civil j)owcr; for 
upon that, and the justice and magnanimity of the great mass 
of my countrymen, I relied for security, after I had swept down, 
if necessary, thousands of traitors and murderers, who were as 
much their enemies as mine. My ofiice, if a fortified, was not 
a provisioned fort ; so these men, not I, are mad, when they 



314 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

would represent me as warring against the whole community. 
But let no man misunderstand me. Still, in that case, I would 
yield only to superior brute force ; if every man in the district 
was against me, I do not admit the right even of a whole com- 
munity to do an illegal act. The case of invasion by a foreign 
power is not a parallel case : that is only not forbidden by law, 
but these men acted not only without the sanction of law, but 
against it, and in violation of its most sacred purposes ; which 
are, to guard the weak against the strong and many. No, my 
countrymen, there is no liberty here, if every man in this state 
should join to enslave the press, whilst the Constitution stands 
an eternal barrier to, and in stern condemnation of the crime. 

In the fourth and principal charge, the editorial already given 
is urged against me. It is true that I spoke of slavery as I felt 
and knew it to be. Whilst I admit now, and ever have, the 
humanity of many masters, and whilst I have never denounced 
slaveholders as a class, still I maintain, that American slavery, 
its system, its laws, and its possible abuses, make it " the lowest, 
the basest, and the most unmitigated the world has seen." The 
Jews had their jubilees ; the Romans and Greeks admitted the 
freedman at once into the class of masters ; the Turk makes 
his slave his wife, and admits her equality in the household ; 
the Asiatic, and the African, and the European slave fall not to 
the level of ours. For here color, and natural differences of 
structure and capacity, heighten the deformities of slavery, and 
increase its difficulties, its cruelties, and its dangers. On this 
question I spoke as one man to his equal : and who shall be my 
censors? It can be offensive to none, but the basely guilty. If 
false, let it be proven ! If true, let it be remedied. But as for 
mere clamor — -I contemn it. " Go, show your slaves how cho- 
leric you are, and make your bondmen tremble. Must I budge? 
Must I observe you ? Must I stand and crouch under your testy 
humors? By the Gods, you shall digest the venom of your 
spleen though it do split you." Impartial men must remember, 
that tbis was written by a man just able to wield a pen, after a 
most dangerous and brain-oppressing fever. It is the dreamy 
abstract speculation of the invalid purified by suffering, un- 
guarded and unsuspecting, because conscious of a high and 
elevated motive. It is not an invitation to evil, or a vicious 
gloating upon suffering foreseen, but the great yearning of a 
heart full of humanity, to save others from impending ruin. 



C. M. CLAY'S APPEAL.— NO. V. 315 

There are in it, T frankly admit, words which seem to look to a 
servile insurrection, and to name such an event is, as the author 
of " A Kentuckian," also, ought to know, to invite it. This I 
simply regret, not on my own account, but on account of the 
cause, which is more dear to me than life. My war is upon 
slavery, not upon slaveholders, I repeat once more. As no man 
in Kentucky had more to lose, so no man had more reason than 
I to avoid even the suspicion of insurrection. AH human pro- 
babilities conspire to sustain me, when I assert before heaven 
and earth, that such a thought never entered ray head. Come, 
then, ye testy cavillers, I say the proposition is true, in its letter, 
and in its spirit, and in its broadest meaning ! Yes, this much 
abused article but reiterates that virtue is the only secure basis 
for republics* Such has been the doctrine from Longinus, 
running down tinough all writers upon government till the final 
repetition of it in AVashington's Farewell iVddress to the Ame- 
rican people. The consciences of slaveholders bear testimony 
to its immortal truth, and neither calumny nor murder can 
eradicate it from the convictions of mankind. Need I maintain 
an argument to prove that slavery is subversive of virtue, and 
consequently dangerous to repul)lics, and death to liberty ? Go, 
listen to your Hammonds, and let pulpit hypocrites stultify them- 
selves and you, in discussing and refuting the language, reason, 
and the irrepressible axioms of the heart. Shall I contend that 
slavery is at war with the virtue and justice of this nation 1 
Behold our broken constitutions, our violated laws, our tarnished 
faith, our wounded honor, our rapacious wars, our plundering 
conquests, our insulted ambassadors, our imprisoned citizens, 
our robbed presses, our murdered people, and tell me if I be a 
" fanatic " when I say that slavery threatens all law, and our 
whole system of republicanism, the ruin of property, and the 
loss of life. Whether, then, slavery stood by the avarice and 
selfishness of the farmer of Kentucky, the planter of Louisiana, 
the manufacturer of Lowell, the cotton merchant of New York, 
the pork dealer of Cincinnati, or the speculators upon slave labor 

* " Sine summa justitia, rempublicam geri nulla modo posse." — Cicero. " I 
must fairly tell you, that so far as my principles are concerned, that I have no 
idea of liberty unconnected with virtue. Nor do I believe that any good con- 
stitutions of government can find it necessaiy for their security to doom any 
part of the people to a permanent slavery." Burke. See Montesquieu's 
L'E»prit des Lois; Vatteli's Laws of Nations ; Paley, etc., passim. 



316 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

all over the Union ; I wished to appeal to the strongest motives 
of the human heart, the love of money and the adoration of 
women, to arouse them to its inevitable and disastrous conse- 
quences. Will any one of these men tell me the guards which 
they propose to thrust between the " silver on the board," and 
the daughters of wealth, with hands unhardened by toil ; yeSj 
the " smooth-skinned women on the ottoman," and the plun- 
dered poor, the lawless whose existence is pre-supposed liy the 
very necessity of government at all? Come, now, fastidious 
statesman, you who have had time to reflect, please tell me, that 
I may in the future avoid your wrath, and my country escape 
this great woe ! Shall it be by law ? That you have sacrificed 
to slavery ! Shall it be by a long instilled and sacred reverence 
for the Constitution ? That you have trampled under foot ! 
Shall it be by an appeal to a common interest between the rich 
and the poor — the only basis of republicanism ? You have 
separated the great mass of the American people from you, by 
slavery, by studied contempt, and the impassable barriers of 
ignorance and poverty ! You will appeal to a strong govern- 
ment and a king — will you ? Look back through history and 
learn, that no republic has passed into a monarchy without long 
years of blood and anarchy, in which perish property, men, 
women, and children ; and when are not spared the statues of 
dead men, nor the temples of the living God ! The last clause 
in the article, which has been basely tortured into the ipresent 
now, every sensible man will see is dependent upon the contin- 
gency when virtue is lost. It may be now, to-morrow, next 
year, the next hundred years, and if virtue is never rooted out 
of the minds of the people, never ! 

Has it come to this, that I am to be drawn up, and publicly 
censured for speaking in plain and manly language to men, Avho 
order me to relinquish my birthright, or die. " Go tyrants, I am 
not yet a slave." Are yon men 7 Kentuckians, is not this 
shameful ? Alas ! have we so soon " lost the breed of noble 
bloods?" 

It is not true that I " denied the right of the citizens to consult 
together on such a subject." 

On the contrary, I did acknowledge their right, by my repeated 
appeals to them ; not only to consult, but to advise — to warn ; 
but then their office was at an end. They could no more than 
a single person, go farther than the laws allowed. Had they 



C. M. CLAY'S ArrEAL-No. V. ' 317 

confined themselves to this, much good would have resulted. 
There is a moral power in the proceedings and counsel of the 
assembled people in the public discharge of duty, when within 
the bounds of law and justice, Avhich no sensible man will dis- 
reo-ard, so long as principle be not violated. But when they 
transcend their power, they sink into the dust, impotent and 
contemptible as the meanest faction, and all 7ne7i will stand by 
me when I defy them, as I do now. Whether they will best 
accomplish their purpose by the course pursued, time will 
develope, and may God defend the right ! 

For whom " have I sacrificed so much ?" For the six hun- 
dred thousand free ivhite laborers of Kentucky ! Against 
whose every vital interest slavery wages an eternal and impla- 
cable war ! For them I lost caste with the slaveholding aris- 
tocracy of the land ! For them I liberated my slaves ! For 
them have I sacrificed all chance of political elevation in my 
native state ! For them have I lived, and for them have I stood 
ready to die ! They who have never eaten of my bread, and 
stabbed me in tlie dark ; they, who have stood by me again 
and again, without hope of reward ; they, whose children gaz- 
ing in my face with lovely eyes and reproachful confidence, 
seemed to say, ='what are you, as a legislator, doing for us? 
Shall we not be enabled to be fed and clothed as the children 
of slaveholders? Shall we not have echool-houses and 
churches, and be taught to know how to work to advantage ? 
Shall we not be so placed, as to be able to possess a small piece 
of land, or at all events, if we are manufacturers, to sell our 
wares, or if we are mechanics, to find continual employment at 
fair wages 7 Shall we not change our log cabins daubed with 
mud, and chilled by the winds of winter, into comfortable little 
cottages, with some evidences of taste, in yards of flowers and 
shrubs ? Save us, we pray you, from necessary idleness and 
dishonorable ?<;or/c— spare yourselves the expense of jails and 
penitentiaries, and rescue us from the chances of a felon's fate !" 
Yes, these are the men, the great majority of the people of Ken- 
tucky, whose interests, in 1841, I swore I would never betray— 
for whom I then fell, and now suffer. How long, my country- 
men, seeing you have the power of the ballot-box, shall these things 



be ? Will "you not at last be removed from prejudice, which 
poisons you with hatred and injustice to the blacks ? Enslaved 
by passions which our masters cunningly infuse into us from our 



318 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

very cradle — will you never open your eyes and be free? Will 
you not at last awake, arise, and be men ? Then shall I be de- 
livered from this outlawry, this impending ruin, this insufferable 
exile, this living death ! 

Not upon the slaves did I call. How could I ? Is any man in 
Kentucky so base as to charge that I have held secret conference 
with the slaves 1 No, not one ! How then could I call upon 
the slaves, who could not read, one in a hundred ? With all 
my relations and kindred, slaveholders, many of them minister- 
ing in turn at my sick couch, by day and by night — all to be in- 
volved in one common ruin — warring one county against a 
whole state— and I prostrate, and unable to raise my head — to 
call upon the slaves to rally to the standard of civil war ! I re- 
frain from expressing the great indignation which such gross 
and monstrous calumny cannot but generate in the coldest 
bosom. Go search my secret and public life, from the cradle 
up, and tell the world by what steps I have gradually prepared 
myself for this last round of unmixed depravity ! When liave 
I stript the poor ? When played the sycophant to the power- 
ful? Where have I lied? What party betrayed? What 
friend deserted ? When have I stolen or robbed ? When did I 
counterfeit? Whom have I secretly injured ? In what peni- 
tentiaries have I served an apprenticeship to crime? Whom 
have I secretly poisoned? Whom have I openly murdered ? 
Then, before this charge, in the face of Kentucky and the 
world, I stand mute! Poor and friendless— broken in spirit and 
in hope— outlawed and exiled though I be, there is something 
yet remaining, of what a man, a proud, just, honest man should 
be, and I shall not stoop to plead not guilty, not here, nor now ! 

In the fifth and last count of this indictment, I am accused 
of " attacking the tenure of the property of slaveholders," of 
being a " trespasser on them," and of "pushing the community 
to extremity." Now, I deny that I have ever attacked the legal 
tenure of slave property. The justice of a law is one thing, its 
validity another. I call for proof My writings for five years 
are before them and the world. I challenge them to the proof. 
They can never produce it. How then can I be a " trespasser 
upon them ?" ] have ever vindicated their legal right to their 
property : they have robbed me of mme ! They have taken 
moie property from me than the average value of the slaves 
held by masters in Kentucky. If then their accusation were 



C. M. CLAY'S APPEAL.— NO. V. 319 

true, and not false, perpetual silence should have sealed their 
lips : the robber, if I be one, has been doubly robbed ! 

I did not push the community to extremity. For, in addi- 
tion to my other concessions, I was willing to suspend the paper 
till my hej*lth was restored. No, by all that is sacred among 
men, it was not the community, but slavery, which I was 
pushing to extremity ! Those slaveholders who favored eman- 
cipation, cared not what I said of slavery, as my subscription 
list proves : those who did not and never did intend to favor it, 
I was not fool enough to attempt to persuade. If slavery never 
falls till it falls by the consent of slaveholders, it will never fall 
" in the tide of times." How many of all the monarchs of the 
world will any man of sense undertake to persuade to lay 
down the sceptre ? Governor Hammond, in speaking of " moral 
suasion," addressed to slaveholders, tells but simple truth, when, 
in writing to the venerable Thomas Clarkson, he says, " you 
knoio it is mere nonsense^ John Green, of Kentucky, one of 
the mildest, the best, and most impartial men that ever lived, 
said in the Luminary, in 1836 : " It is but natural that a 
stranger, in passing through our state, should take up such im- 
pressions, from the liberal tone in which our politicians, and 
other intelligent men, speak on the subject, so long as they are 
permitted to deal in generals, and to qualify their remarks by 
the important word if. But if you call upon them to propose 
some plan, and to conmience action, they will almost uni- 
versally draw back. I think I know something of our public 
men, and I tell you they are for doing nothing." Let me be 
uo more, then, "damned with faint praise " that my motives are 
good, but that I am rash and denunciatory." No, my country- 
men, it is not icords^ but action, for which I am now outlawed. 

The slaveholders of the other counties have dropt the stale 
and shallow plea of incendiarism, and say that slavery shall 
not be discussed. This is the only and true issue. This mani- 
festo means it, though it was ashamed to say it. Else why 
speak of its constitutional guaranties ? Now the United States 
Constitution leaves it fairly within the power of change. The 
Kentucky Constitution, article II, section 1, thus reads: "The 
General Assembly shall have no power to pass laws for the 
emancipation of slaves, without the consent of their owners, or 
without paying their owners previous to such emancipation, a full 
equivalent in money for the slaves so emancipated." It is true, 



320 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

we of the emancipation party have never pressed this power, be- 
cause we deemed it impracticable in execution. Yet, here is a 
clause putting the whole question fairly within the field of dis- 
cussion, because in the field of action — which relieves us of the 
necessity of claiming in our defence the constitutional rights 
and specific guaranties of the liberty of speech and the press. 

I say, then, that this last, and all these allegations against 
me are false and cahimjiious, and for my own justification, I 
appeal to Kentucky and to the world. 

Having said thus much upon this subject, in connexion with 
my own name, in order to develop its injustice and studied cru- 
elty and determined wrong, I shall now consider it in its far 
more important bearing upon the liberties of the State and the 
Nation. 

Section II., article VI., Kentucky Constitution, has this defi- 
nition of treason : " Treason against the commonwealth shall 
consist only in levying war against, or in adhering to its ene- 
mies, giving them aid and comfort." Now here was a great 
party of men who rose up and declared themselves armed — 
" We are armed and resolved"— they go to the civil authorities, 
the Mayor and Marshal of the city of Lexington, officers of the 
commonwealth, who warn them that an illegal act is about to 
be perpetrated — and with arms and an overpowering force eject 
them and take property which was yielded up to the possession 
of the law. Not only do they fail to make restitution, but tbey 
avow their determination to continue their illegal action, and if 
necessary, to shed blood — to commit murder upon peaceable 
citizens. Now if this is not " levying war against the com- 
monwealth," then is human language utterly incapable of con- 
veying any thing intelligible. It was a revolution, bloodless, 
only because no physical resistance was made, as they them- 
selves avow. What is the commonwealth ? its officers ? Against 
them they levied war. What is the commonwealth ? its con- 
stitution ? That they avowedly set aside as being incompetent 
to meet the case. What is the commonwealth? its laws 1 They 
proclaimed that there was no legal power for their action. They 
put it down in writing that there was usurped an original or 
revolutionary power. The assembly was called in open day — 
its president was a magistrate, a sworn conservator of the peace 
at other times — its action was deliberate and "dignified" — its 
numbers were large, and its force irresistible — its end the sup- 



C. M. CLAY'S APPEAL.— NO. V. 32| 

pression of the press and the Constitution of the State — and 
lastly, it solemnly appealed to the world in justification of its 
proceedings. If this be not a revolution, then never has one 
taken place in the history of men. No matter what iriay have 
been the provocation on my part — even though I had been 
proved an insurrectionist— even though I had been caught ap- 
plying the torch to dwellings of defenceless women and children 
— even though 1 had been taken with hands red with the blood 
of my fellow-citizens — still the character of this action is un- 
changed in the least respect. The press had passed from my 
possession — it was stopped by legal process — whatever danger 
it threatened, if any, was past — ^it had become inert matter, 
incapable of moral or legal wrong — and even if it had not, the 
commonwealth only was responsible for its influence, whether 
good or bad upon the safety of the community, which these 
men effected to believe endangered, but of which, in reality, 
they themselves were the only enemies. 

On the 18th day of August, then, were the constitutional 
liberties of Kentucky forcibly overthrown, and an irresponsible 
oligarchy of slaveholders established on their ruins. 

They may allow Governor Owsley to retain his seat at the 
head of the executive department— they may permit the legis- 
lature to pass such laws as suit them — they may, in a word, 
suffer the forms and machinery of a free government to go on 
—but be assured, men of Kentucky, you are nevertheless slaves. 

Be assured that you live under an anarchical despotism. The 
same men who robbed me of my press, have sat as a jury and 
justified the deed, and declared there was no oflfence against the 
laws ! What care they, who plot murder, for violated oaths? 
The respectable slaveholding mob of the 18th, sat in judgment 
upon the " ungentlemanly" i^job of the 19th by aims and force, 
claiming for themselves only supreme irresponsible power. The 
" canaille" of the 10th were drawn up before the courts and 
punished — the " respectable" gentlemen of the 18th beyond all 
human computation more guilty, went unwhipt of justice. 
Surely the king can do wrong ! Whilst I speak there are now 
ordered some hundreds of armed men by the Governor into Clay 
county to preserve what little remnant of civil authority, and 
the old form of government may yet remain. What will this 
come to ? Where does it all lead ? It requires no prophetic 
eye to see blood flowing knee deep ere this danmable usurpation 
21 



322 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

come to the still grave of unresisted and hopeless despotism ! 
Did they say to Stevenson of Georgetown, print no more upon 
the subject of slavery? Has the Louisville Journal been si- 
lenced ? In Lincoln, and Jefferson, and Nelson, will a peace- 
able citizen be drawn from his bed at midnight and be hung to 
a limb or shot down like a dog in the day if he venture to read 
one-half of the newspapers of America'/ Are not these men 
mad ? Are they not spinning for tbeniselves a web, which, hke 
the shirt of Nessus will, instead of p?-otecii7>g-, involve them in 
utter ruin and despair? Who in South Carolina dare now 
discuss slavery ? Can Calhoun — can Hammond plead, if he 
would, for emancipation ? Have they not raised a Devil which 
the combined intellect of the state cannot lay. though death 
look them in the face, and the grave open beneath their feet ? 
" Madmen and fanatics," would you place Kentucky in the 
same category ? Will you not allow us to be saved now while 
it is to-day — and whilst the evil years come not ? 

By what tenure do you hold your slaves ? Is it by natural 
right, or by the Constitution? If the Constitution be over- 
thrown is not the slave free ? Will the other states return him 
into bondage? Will they interfere to put down domestic vio- 
lence, when by you all legal security is first destroyed ? When 
you avow yourselves murderers in purpose, will the North be 
thus cured of dangerous fanaticism ? Will not blood answer to 
blood, and the earth cry out unceasingly for vengeance? Is not 
the liberty of the press the common concern of the whole Ame- 
rican people ? Can you plant your iron heel upon the ten million 
of northern freemen? Are Bunker Hill and Lexington ideal 
names? and do I dream when I find myself planted upon a soil 
which was named in solemn dedication and remembrance of 
that land which was wet by the blood of those who knew not 
how to be slaves and live ? Can any people be free who volun- 
tarily yield to illegal force a single right? Do I not owe alle- 
giance to the National government ; may she not call .upon 
me at any hour to lay down my life in her defence? Then 
does she not in turn owe me protection? Can the sheep be 
safe when all the watch dogs arc slain ! Can the nation be 
free when all the presses are muzzled ? Have not the organs 
of two administrations made relentless war upon me, a private 
individual? What is there in my person so terrible to the 
slave power ? Is there any thing more terrible to tyrants than 



C. M. CLAY'S APPEAL— No. V. 323 

the liberty of (be press? Will not emissaries from a slavcbold- 
ing President do in the free states to-morrow what is done with 
impunity here to-day? Do not the cries of the blood hounds of 
national patronage, crying for my blood as freely as the despots 
of the 8outh, strike terror into the souls of Northern men ? 

Can it be that the liberty of the press is so small a thing 7 
Know ye nol, Americans, that when the liberty ot speech and 
of the press is lost, all is lost ? Heavens and earth ! must I 
argue this rpiestion with the descendants of Washington and 
Adams? Well, then, Euripides said: "This is true liberty, 
where free-born men, having to advfse the public, may speak 
free." Said Chatham : " Sorry I am to hear liberty of speech 
in this house imputed as a crime ; it is a liberty I mean to ex- 
ercise ; no gentleman ought to be afraid to exercise it." John 
Milton : "And although all the winds of doctrine were let loose 
to play upon the earth, so truth be in the field, we do injurious- 
ly, by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let 
her and falsehood grapple. Who ever knew truth put to the 
worse in a free an<l open encounter ?" Daniel Webster, speak- 
ing of the freedom of opinion : " It may be silenced by military 
power, but cannot be conquered. It is elastic, irrepressible, and 
invulnerable to the weapons of ordinary warfare. It is that im- 
passable, inextinguishable enemy of mere violence and arbitra- 
ry rule, which, like Milton's angels, 

' Vital in every part, 
..' Cannot, but by annihilating, die ' " 

Until this be propitiated or satisfied, it is in vain for power - 
to talk either of triumph or repose. Erskine : " The proposition 
I mean to jnaintain as the basis of the liberty of the press, and 
without which it is an empty sound, is this, that every man not 
intending to mislead, but seeking to enlighten others, what with 
his own reason and conscience, Jiowever erroneously, have dic- 
tated to him as truth, may address himself to the universal rea- 
son of a whole nation, either upon the subject of governments in 
general, or upon that of our own particular country ; that he 
may analyze the principles of its Constitution, point out its er- 
rors and defects, examine and publish its corruptions, warn 
his fellow citizens against their ruinous consequences, and ex- 
ert his whole faculties in pointing out the most advantageous 



324 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

changes in establishments which he considers radically defect- 
ive, or sliding from their object by abuse." 

John Milton, again : " For this is not the liberty which we can 
hope, that no grievance should ever rise in the commonwealth ; 
that let no man in this world expect: but when complaints are 
freely heard, deeply considered, and speedily reformed, then is 
the utmost bovmd of civil liberty attained that wise men 
look for." 

Plutarch nobly says : " Without liberty there is nothing good, 
nothing worthy the desires of men." 

Rotteck: "Curse on hfs memory! The press is to words 
what the tongue is to thoughts. Who will constrain the tongue 
to ask permission for the woid it shall speak, or forbid the soul 
to general thoughts ? What should be free and sacred if not 
the press ?" 

Benjamin Franklin : '■^Freedom of speech is the principal 
pillar of a free government : when this support is taken 
away^ the Constitution of free governnmrt is dissolved, and 
tyranny is erected on its ruins^ 

Erskine : " It is because the liberty of the press resolves itself 
into this great issue, that it has been in every country the 
the last liberty which subjects have been able to wrest from the 
hands of power. Other liberties are held under government, 
but the liberty of opinion keeps governments the7nselves in 
due subjection to their duties. This has produced the mar- 
tyrdom of truth in every age, and the world has only heen 
purged from ignorance with the innocent blood of those ivho 
have enlightened it^ 

James Mcintosh : " One asylum of free discussion is still in- 
violate. There is still one spot in Europe where man can ex- 
ercise his reason on the most important concerns of society ; 
where he can boldly publish his thoughts on the acts of the 
proudest and most powerful tyrants. 

" The press of England is still free. It is guarded by the 
free Constitution of our forefathers ; it is guarded by the hearts 
and arms of Englishmen, and I trust that I may venture to 
say, that if it be to fall, it will fall only under the ruins of 
the British empiie." 

Curran : " What then remains ? The liberty of the press 
only ; that sacred Palladium which no influence, no power, no 
minister, no government, which nothing but the depravity or 



C. M. CLAY'S APPEAL.— NO. V. 325 

folly of a jury can ever destroy. As the advocate of society, 
therefore, of peace, of domestic hberty, and the lasting union of 
the two countries, I conjure you to guard the liberty of the 
press — that great sentinel of the state, that grand detector of 
public imposture — guard it ; because, when it sinks, then sinks 
with it, in one common grave, the liberty of the subject, and the 
security of the crown." 

Such are the opinions of some of the great and good of other 
times, which seem to burst from agonized souls amid tears and 
blood. 

But our fathers did not leave this basis of all liberty to the 
uncertain opinions of men. The United States' Constitution, 
article 1, of A., says : " Congress shall make no law, abridg- 
ing the freedom of speech, or of the press." The Constitution 
of Kentucky, section 7, article 10, says: "The presses shall be 
free to every person who undertakes to examine the proceed- 
ings of the legislative, or any branch of government ; and no 
law shall ever be made to restrain the right thereof. The free 
communication of thought and opinions, is one of the invalu- 
able rights of man, and every citizen may freely write, 
speak, or print, on any subject, being responsible for the abuse 
of that liberty." Then I call upon William Owsley, Governor 
of Kentucky, to protect me in the constitutional re-establish- 
ment of the liberty of the press. This is a case of domestic 
violence. If he has not/power enough here in Kentucky, I de- 
mand of him, in the nanie of the spirit of the fourth article of 
the Constitution, to call upon James K. Polk, President of the 
United States, to assist, with all the power of the national arm, 
in vindicating the violated laws, and a broken Constitution. 
The liberty of the press is my inheritance. It is mine, by the 
common law of the land. Congress has no power to take it 
away, but to make it secure. I implore the American people 
to vindicate their birthright and mine. To the national 
government I owe allegiance, and in turn I claim of it protec- 
tion ; I demand of the congress of the United States to pass 
suitable laws, by which the rebels of the 18th, if they attempt 
to redeem their pledge and renew their violence, may be brought 
to summary punishment, so that I be protected in the liberty of 
speech and of the press. Yes, Americans, if you are not 
slaves, this thing will have to be done. It is your cause and 
not mine. Justice demands it — the Constitution demands it — 



326 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY, 

your own safety demands it — virtue and humanity demand it- 
then, in the name of God and hberty, let it be done. 

In the meantime, I stand here on my native land, for which 
my kindred have bled in every field of honorable achievement 
— one amidst a thousand — undismayed by the dangers and 
death, which, like the plague, with mysterious and impassable 
terrors, by day and by night, hang over me and mine — trust- 
ing that my position may arouse in the bosoms of Americans, 
an honorable shame and a magnanimous lemorse — that they 
may rise up in the omnipotency of the ballot, cast by fifteen 
millions of freemen, and peaceably overthrow the slave despo- 
tism of this nation — and avoid the damning infamy which 
awaits them for all time, in the judgment of the civilized world, 
if they leave me here to die ! 

To the liberty of my country and of mankind, then I dedicate 
myself and those whom I hold yet more dear — and for the 
purity of my motives, and the patriotism of my life, the past and 
the future, I " appeal to Kentucky and to the world." "■' '..^^ --^-' ), 

Cassius M. Clay. 

Lexington, Ky., Sept. 25, 1845. 



LEXINGTON, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14. 

Slavery. 

In pursuance of our original plan, we insert in the editorial 
columns to-day, an able article. We intend to allow our fel- 
low-citizens, whose ability entitle them to the place, to speak 
there for themselves, without comment from us. 



LEXINGTON, TUESDAY, 0CT0BER2L 

Our Printing Office, 

Was moved one day in our absence, to Cincinnati, by some 
of our friends. It puts us to some inconvenience, but we are 



POWDER.— EUGENE SUE. 327 

good natured, and used to ill-usage ; we donH say much about 
it, they can't ! 



Powder 



The slaveholders of the 18th admit that there is pressing 
danger from our slaves — fire — lust — and murder. Yes, slavery 
is a " powder house," say they, which a madman may blow 
up ! Say you so, my respectable masters ? Then, by all the 
instincts of self-preservation, we demand of you to remove this 
powder -house from among us. What right have you, the 
31,000, to keep " powder " in your houses, which may blow up 
the 600,000 free whites of our unhappy country? In the name 
of our wives, our children, our daughters and sons, our friends 
and relations, our homes and our country, we demand that this 
'^nuisance" be removed, as utterly intolerable, and dangerous to 
our peace and safety. 



LEXINGTON, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 28. 
The Kentucky Press 

Is rallying again ; they begin to denounce the mob indirectly. 
Well, " every dog will have his day," at last. 



Eugene Sue. 

We have seen this celebrated and most interesting novehst 
descried of late, as grossly vicious in his works, by many of our 
own, and foreign lands : and some have gone so far as to deny 
liim genius and extraordinary power. The latter allegation is 
too absurd for refutation ; in the language of logicians it would 
be " proving too much." We are willing to admit, that many 
of the scenes, and characters, and persons, to us of original and 
simple manners and unclassic education, are too warmly colored. 



328 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

But there are extremes among men ; and extremes, says the 
adage, meet : the most refined and the most savage nations, in 
some respects, stand upon the same platform, when things are 
called by their right names, and persons seen and described as 
they are. 

The retired countryman supposes that the city belle, with 
anti-Procrustian dress and manners free, is necessarily impure. 
And the secluded American and Englishman, with oriental 
ideas of the sanctity of womankind, look wnth a suspicious eye 
upon the French — the modern Greeks of Europe. With the 
same scale they weigh the gregarious Parisians, in which they 
balance the staid English or American woman — the fireside — 
the bed-chamber — the ho77ie. Now there is equal folly or igno- 
rance displayed by the countryman and the Puritan : and men 
of the world, of enlarged views, laugh at the conclusions of 
both. 

The people of Paris live mostly in hotels : they have not even 
a word in their language which signifies home. Paris is full of 
paintings and statues of the first masters and the most free and 
classic school. She has been the centre of refinement for cen- 
turies: not only the higher classes, but the sans culottes and 
fish-women, of this Babylon of all tongues and climes, are 
admitted to public exhibitions from their very infancy. They 
thus see and become famihar with all parts of the human per- 
son before the passions are developed, and learn to look on with 
indifference, and speak without shame, because without sense 
of impropriety or guilt. An American woman looks for the first 
time upon the Medicean Venus, and blushes of course : but she 
gazes into the eye of the passing stranger till his very soul is 
electrified wdth her mysterious and enchanting influence, and 
deems herself within the strictest bounds of propriety : for what 
are the souls of men made for but to be volatilized in her magic 
crucible? The French woman looks on the Apollo with cold 
unconsciousness, because she is used to it : but she blushes to 
gaze into the eager eyes of the stranger, because custom forbids 
it ; and to her it is unchaste. The man, then, who would un- 
dertake to judge of these two distinct nations of women by the 
same indications is little else than a fool. Mr. Sue is a French- 
man ; he whites for the French people; he must reach the 
French heart, or he had better not write at all 1 



EUGENE SUE. 329 

But when he treats of virtue, is she not made more lovely 
under tlie golden touches of his pencil ? If of vice, does she not 
gloom into horrid deformity and ugliness under his remorseless 
pen ? If he speaks to the poor, does lie not open up to them 
industry, perseverance, long suffering, hope, and ultimate hap- 
piness? If to the rich does he not show them wherein their 
riches may doubly bless them — the giver and the receiver ? 
Thanks to Eugene Sue that he can discern virtue in rags, and 
strip vice of its Khorassan veil. Thanks to him that he removes 
from the humble their envy and malice, and from the rich, their 
supercilious contempt and haughty indifference towards their 
humbler brothers of earth. Honor to his sagacity, and wide 
judgment of intellect, that he sees at a glance, the only basis 
of safety to society, mutual interest and mutual respect between 
the humble and the exalted, the rich and the poor, the beautiful 
and the deformed, the happy and the miserable. A true philo- 
sopher he, who, in the glorious and good, sees something earthy 
and unsanctified — and in the debased and fallen some elements 
of regeneration and undying hope. 

We admit there is something wanting in his universality — 
something too proscriptivc against the Catholic religion, in his 
Wandering Jew, Avhich we do not sanction or commend : but 
he says himself that he desires to expose its abuses ; not disturb 
its faith and truth. He wars against remorseless power where- 
ever disj)layed — in religion — in pohtics — in the social circle ; 
priestcraft — servitude and exclusiveness^all sit heavily upon 
the wings of this high soaring son of liberty and equality among 
men. Neither the power engrossing machinery of the Catholic 
religion ; American slavery ; nor social oppression find favor 
with him. Sue is not a mere novelist, nor simply a moralist, 
but he combines many of the higher qualities of both in the far 
seeing and man-regenerating statesman. Not in the halls of 
legislation, live always the rulers of men. The democratic 
principle grows apace among the nations of the world, and 
many begin to hear her voice in the wilderness. Priests worthy 
of her glorious ministration speak once more from her long 
mute altars of Delphic prescience, and among the highest, holi- 
est, and most loved of these is Eugene Sue. 



330 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

The Beginning of the End. — Mason. (Ky.,) Meeting.) 

We gave, last week, the proceedings of tlie citizens of Mason 
county meeting-, called after a long and deliberate call, with a 
hurried notice of the same. Although we have received rough 
handling, it is yet our pride to hail tliese proceedings as the first 
victory of the emancipation party in Kentucky, The resolu- 
tions of Reid, and those of Waller, sustaining the Lexington 
rebels, were voted doivn ! Thanks, sons of Kentucky, for thus 
much. 

We subscribe to the first resolution with all our heart; it 
damns for ever the action of the ISth. 

We subscribe to the second resolution, with this qualification, 
that the "irreparable" injury must he greater than the one in- 
flicted by the use of revolutionary power. The claim of Great 
Britain " to tax the colonies in all cases whatever," Avas a case 
of that kind. Here the injury threatened was wide- spread, 
eternal, and utterly destructive of all liberty. But the case of 
the Vicksburg mob, the Joe Smith mob, the Boston convent mob, 
and no other mob which has taken place in this Union, justify 
the second resolution. Not even a revolution, however neces- 
sary and seemingly expedient, can have the sanction of the se- 
cond resolution, unless that revolution be founded on justice. 
The mob of the 18tli were using urgent means in an unjust 
cause. W^e cannot, if we are about burning a man's house, 
take his life, even in self-defence, because our unjust action 
bars all the means of enforcing it, and forfeits original as well 
as incidental rights. Far less will mere suspicion that an un- 
just action will be punished by others, warrant a defensive at- 
tack. Even if servile insurrection were a consequence of the 
discussion of slavery, which it is not, and slaveholders could 
prevent insurrection by emancipation as well as by the suppres- 
sion of the liberty of the press, every principle of religion, rea- 
son, and justice, would sa}'^, emancipate or stand condemtied. 

But so far from free discussion inviting insurrection, it is the 
sole preventive ; for, as sure as fate, if despotism prevents dis- 
cussion, insurrection follows of course, unless slavery be eternal, 
which is impossible ! 

Aliout tbe tliird resolution there is an honest difference of 
opinion. The violence of our opponents drove us from our 
desired position — no personalities. It is christian not to resent 



BEGINNING OF THE END. 331 

injuries ; but we are, we confess, not thus far imbued with that 
glorious spirit of " forgive them. Father, for they know not 
what they do." We were threatened with violence before we 
published a single number of the True American ! Why then, 
men of Mason, shall we only be censured ? Americans, how 
long shall it be true that those only who are striving earnestly 
for the right and the true, shall be marked in their minutest 
errors, whilst the desperately wicked are passed over in silence ? 
We say once more, our crime was not in the manner, but in the 
thing — ^not in the tone, but in the action. Kentuckians will 
yet see this to their sorrow. 

Against the fourth resolution we shall ever most bitterly pro- 
test whilst we live. The resolution does not state the truth. We 
never were waited upon " by a committee of the people of Lex- 
ington." On the contrary, it was a committee representing, 
with some few exceptions, thirty as infamous men as ever met 
in secret conclave to plot treason and murder. Had we replied 
otherwise, we should have been unworthy of the name of Ken- 
tuckian ; the poorest slave in Kentucky might well have des- 
pised us. The people of Mason dishonor themselves by such a 
resolution. 

The fifth resolution meets our approbation if " abolition" is 
taken in its worst sense — if not, not ! The True American is 
not an abolition paper. We have no objection to the passage 
of laws to prevent the circulation of " incendiary" publications. 

About the sixth resolution there may be an honest difference 
of opinion. We are not yet ready for a convention. 

We differ about the first part of the seventh resolution. The 
last proposition to colonize, meets our decided approbation : 
provided it be done by the voluntary consent of the free blacks. 

We give the eighth resolution our hearty approbation as a 
scheme of Christian benevolence. We do not believe that 
Colonization is the remedy for slavery ! It never has been ; 
and we think for obvioas reasons never will be. The true ob- 
stacle in the way of emancipation is the real or imaginary 
pecuniary loss : colonizing adds to that loss. 

The ninth resolution is the first victory of liberty over slavery 
in this State. God defend the right ! 

With regard to the last resolution, we believe that any agita- 
tion is better than the lethargy of the last half century. Under 
the let-alone-system, the slaves in this Union have increased 



332 THE WHITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

from a few thousands to three millions ; the local " cancer" has 
become a constitutional disease, which is sure to kill, if let alone. 
Even a quack doctor is better than none, for he might stumble 
on some efficient remedy. So far as modern abolitionism me- 
ditates unconstitutional action, we go as far as the farthest in 
condemning it. But we still more condemn the fanaticism and 
unconstitutional action of the ultraists of the South : the one 
errs on the side of virtue and humanity, the other in the cause 
of crime and the destruction of the natural rights of a large 
portion of the human race. 

The denunciation of abolitionists is a herculean club in the 
hands of the ultraists of the South, with which they propose to 
knock out the brains of all opponents of slavery. We deny 
that it is either wise or just to cater to this criminal appetite. 
For our own part we are simply saying what every sensible 
citizen knows to be true, that every sincere man does, and 
ever will sympathize with every other sincere, and honest, and 
sensible man, engaged in the same cause. We should as soon 
think of denouncing a Northern tariff man for agreeing with us 
on that measure, as denouncing a Northern anti-slavery man 
for agreeing with us in proposing to array the whole constitu- 
tional power of the Union against slavery. 

That slaveholders should denounce those, who oppose sla- 
very, is to be expected ; but to denounce the friends of liberty 
is not the province of one contending to make his country free. 
We would have every man in this Union agree with us and 
act with us on this subject : were it otherwise we were a fool or 
a knave. 

In conclusion, we see no essential difference between our own 
opinions and those of the people of Mason : and although we 
may personally suffer at their hands, we are free to avow that 
Messrs. McClung, Chambers, and Phister, deserve the thanks of 
every lover of liberty and republicanism, and that they, and all 
the favorers of these resolutions, will -receive the glorious re- 
ward of a good conscience and the admiration of the re- 
public. 



PRISONS AND MORALS. 333 

Prisons and Morals. 

We have been favored bj^ the author with " Remarks on 
Prisons, and Prison Disciphne in the United States, by D. L. 
Dix," a pamphlet of 104 pages, Boston, 1845. 

We have no doubt, however much we apprehend serious evils 
from the result, that the public mind of this, and perhaps of all 
civilized nations, is fast becoming opposed to capital punish- 
ments. The subject of prisons and prison discipline, therefore, is 
a subject of pressing interest to statesmen and moralists. When 
we see twenty-six states pouring out yearly, perhaps, above an 
average of fifty criminals, each from their penitentiaries, making 
a total of 1300 desperate and degraded men and women, turned 
loose upon communities possessing but little reverence for " law 
and order" — who can wonder at the burnt cities, robberies, 
svviiidlings, mobs, and murders, which fill the columns of our 
journals J 

It is a startling reflection, that just in proportion as crime 
seems to increase in frequency and degree, so does the objection 
to capital punishment gather strength in the public mind. With 
interest, therefore, have we examined this book, full of good 
sense — of philanthropy, without any morbid sensibility in favor 
of criminals — and of impartiality in the examination and 
statement of facts, which rarely attends devoted zeal to any 
particular theory or pursuit. 

Miss Dix seems to think the number of reformed criminals 
greatly overrated, from the fact, that few comparatively are -re- 
turned to the same prison. For they would, of course, seek 
distant places, and a strange society — change their names and 
vocations, and thus elude detection, and, even when imprisoned 
again, would rarely be identified. She considers 2^revention 
far better than cure; in fact the onlT/ sure remedy against 
wide-spread crime. This can only be done by universal, men- 
tal and moral education in early life. In addition to this, 
she would have provided, by public or private means, associated 
effort and expenditure, work and employment for the children 
who arc destitute by orphanage or parental neglect. What 
crimes then may we not expect in the slave states, where 3,000,000 
of the population arc barred from all mental cultivation, and 
arc in the most unfavorable condition possible for moral infu- 
sion ! Then look at our vast number of whites uneducated, 



334 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

and when educated even, cut off from the respectabihty of la- 
bor, and its mere physical advantages, arising from the occu- 
pation of land, or the certain sale of manufactured wares ! In- 
stead of our prisons being schools of moral reform, and return- 
ing self-respect and intellectual culture, they are made slave fac- 
tories in the domestic traffic. 

Miss Dix recommends the " Pennsylvania system," of se- 
parate cells day and night for prisoners, in decided preference 
to the " Auburn system," of a common place of work by day, 
and the hardly possible maintenance of silence. She regards 
the objections and prejudices against this plan, as unfounded and 
unjust. Absolute solitary confinement, where no person is seen 
or heard by the prisoner, is no doubt intolerable, and w^ould 
perhaps in many cases bring on madness, disease, and death. But 
this is not the thing proposed by the cellular system. For there 
the prisoner may see the warden, the steward, the minister of 
religion, and occasionally the visiting public, all of whom would 
exercise a wholesome influence on their minds and hearts. But 
this is impossible where they are sustained by the company of 
hardened and guilty companions in obduracy or shamed by 
the base against penitence and virtue. Partial solitude cer- 
tainly gives more vigor to the reflective faculties, which are 
generally deficient in criminals, whilst it deepens the natural 
affections, which, properly directed, are at last the surest checks 
upon injurious and criminal actions towards men. At all 
events, by this system, if the bad are not made good, the 
good are not made bad ; as is always the case nearly, where 
all are confined in common. The outer world is thus only 
protected against dangerous combinations, which result from 
mutual shame and long companionship in common prisons. 

?.liss Dix regards the reflections of Charles Dickens, and 
some others, upon solitary confinement, as founded upon mis- 
apprehension of the facts, and a poetic and dramatic fancy, 
which surely is not the kind of mind most to be regarded in 
things of so great importance. 

Prisons, she holds, ought to support themselves, but not be 
made a source of revenue to the state. The surplus funds 
should be applied to an enlargement of moral and intellectual 
facilities for improvement, or held as a reserve fund for the 
better class of industrious prisoners to commence life with anew. 
She is in favor of starving and solitary confinement for a breach 



A KENTUCKY FREEMAN. 335 

of prison discipline, in preference to the infliction of stripes, 
tliough she thinks they should not be forbidden — but be held hi 
terrorem over the convicts, to be used as a dernier resort. 
Nothing is more deplorable than the common jail system, where 
before and after trial, the guilty and the innocent, the old and 
the young, the pure and the impure, of all sexes, are tumbled 
together in one common room. Where the expense forbids the 
cellular system, she recommends some degree of classification 
of age, sex, and crime. 

Miss Dix seems well versed in all the statistics of foreign and 
home prisons. But we forbear entering upon all the subjects 
treated in this little volume — expense, cleanliness, air, heat, 
water, &c., as our object is mainly to call the public attention 
to the moral influences of the penitentiary system, which so 
nmch aflfects individuals and states. 



LEXINGTON, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 4. 

Voice of a Kentucky Freeman. 

We proudly give place to the following noble letter of W. S. 
Campbell, Esq., of Lincoln county, Kentucky. It wall be recol- 
lected that a few slaveholders got together in Lincoln, and re- 
solved that the True American should not circulate in that once 
gallant and free old county ; one in which such men as Boone, 
and Estill, and other noble spirits loved to roam the untamed 
forest. We will now see whether Lincoln is full of freemen, or 
cowardly slaves ; whether they will stand by the Constitution 
and laws of Kentucky, or quail before the despotism of the 
slaveholders : and may God defend the right. 

Cassius M. Clay, Esq. 

Dear Sir : — I have seen a few copies of the True American, 
as well as heard of its suppression in Lexington, Kentucky, by 
an unholy mob — the leaders of which were ex-governor M. and 
the Hon. T. F. Marshall, together with various other distin- 
guished gentlemen. The Liberty of Speedi and the Press are 



336 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

sacred to 'political vitality in America. If yoa will send me 
one cojDy of your paper for a year, I will pay you by reiuittance 
the first day of April next. 

Yours truly, 

W. S. Campbell. 
Stanford, Lincoln Co., Ky., Oct. 1845. 

Thus, — when will the world learn it? — our cause gathers 
strength from persecution. Our subscription list in Kentucky 
is once more makiiig slow but steady progress, notwithstanding 
some about Lexingfton have fled the field ! 



The Judicial Acquittal of the Mob. 

We have too nuich regard for common sense, to attempt to 
dispute this matter with man or fool. Some things lose clearness 
by being disturbed : all axioms are such. Are the vague and 
misty conjectures of Buckeye lawyers to outweigh the letter of 
the Constitution, and pure reason.? It was a one-sided affair, 
gotten up by the mobites : they presented, tried, and acquitted 
themselves. 

If any man, or set of men, may abate by violence what he 
conceives to be a nuisance, what, or who, can stand? This re- 
minds us of the quack who with red hot iron converted all his 
patient's sores into burns — he could cure burns ! But some of 
our good citizens were anxious to gaze upo-n the length of Mhi- 
ister S.'s ears : at a court nearer home, they may be seen, not 
only long, but green. 

The rebels on the 18th said they were acting without law : 
the long eared jury of acquittal say they acted with law : which 
lie 7 We suppose we shall now hear no more of bitter and re- 
lentless denunciation of Andrew Jackson, for over-riding the 
laws to save New Orleans. The one was fighting an enemy ; 
the Lexingtonians a friend : Jackson fought one against a thou- 
sand ; the Lexingtonians a thousand against one ! If that one 
were sick — AVould not the world be lost in admiration ? 



PLAN OF EMANCIPATION. 337 

Decrease of Blacks in Freedom. 

The decrease of the blacks, hving with a more energetic race 
in a state of freedom, hke that of the Indians before the whites, 
(which we have so often maintained against the alarmists,) is 
most elaborately proven by the statistics of Massachusetts, 
beginning 1790, as reported in the African Repository for this 
week. This may be urged by some as an argument against 
setting the poor blacks free. It is better for us, and they j^refer 
it. Injustice towards the free still oppresses them; how then 
can they flourish ? We are, then, for encouraging them to emi- 
grate to a colony, somewhere, of entire blacks. 



Plan of Emancipation. 

The plan of emancipation which we have proposed is the 
most gra(hial possible. 

To free all the slaves now living at once ; the West India 
experiment has proven to be both safe and economical. To free 
all born hereafter, male and female, would seem to be gradual 
enough. But that slaveholders might have no excuse, w^e have 
proposed to emancipate only the females born after a certain 
time, to be agreed upon by a convention. 

By this plan there would be no sudden breaking in upon the habits 
of the present generation. At thirty years time after the young 
began to be free, by providing a fund in the manner we proposed 
in the twelfth number of this journal, to buy in all that were 
offered voluntarily by masters to the state for purchase, slavery 
could be extinguished in that period. For all those Avho did not 
want to sell their slaves into perpetual slavery in the cotton or 
sugar regions, and who yet did not feel able to liberate them 
here, would be gratified in seeing them free in their native land, 
and yet not be ruined by the sacrifice. Those slaveholders who 
did not want to sell to the South, nor to liberate here, nor to take 
a fair equivalent from the state, but who would want to hold 
on to their slaves just for the luxury of having their fellow-men 
in bondage, would soon be compelled by public sentiment to 
yield them up ; for the difficulties of keeping them, from a com- 
22 



338 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

bination of causes, would far outweigh any supposed advantage 
to be derived from their retention. 

Suppose, now, after the 4th day of July, in the year 1847, all 
female slaves were to be free at twenty-one years of age, what 
would be the effect ? 

Rather than be at the expense of rearing and educating them 
the great mass of masters would move off or sell their slaves 
into a chmate more congenial to the African than this, and thus 
relieve our people from their imaginary difficulties, of a large 
free population. And philanthropy would not be the loser. But 
all those who were allowed to remain would be learned to read, 
w^rite, and cypher, and taught some trade : and, of course, be 
better citizens, and safer far than slaves. Thus far then would 
philanthropy be a nett gainer of all the remaining 180,000 
blacks at length changed from slaves to freemen, or the frac- 
tional part of the same, more or less. 

In thirty years more every one by the state coming in as 
purchaser, would regard this as virtually a free state, and make 
accounts accordingly. All men of the age of forty years, who 
are too old easily to change their habits of life, would have 
passed off the stage of life ; all men under forty would be able 
to effect in thirty years a revolution in their previous habits, and 
the household and plantation economy, so as to adapt them all 
agreeably, and without pecuniary loss, to a state of freedom. 
Immediately all discussion of the slave question would cease, 
and the councils of our state become moulded in unison with 
the interests and feehngs of the great mass of American free- 
men. 

All the slaves sold out of the state would be capital, ready to 
be invested in manufactures, which would invite as many labo- 
rers from the North into this genial climate as we would require. 
Also in addition to this, there would be poured into our state a 
great many men of capital, who would come among us to enjoy 
ovu' pleasant climate, and get clear of the cold and long winters 
which now oppress so much all the cultivators of the soil north 
of Mason and Dixon's Line. Thus would the towns begin to 
grow once more ; mercantile and all city employments " look 
up ;" home markets be secured l"or the productions of the soil ; 
and land rise in value, till it would make many who are now 
living dogs' lives — the slaves of slaves — independent and 
easy in their circumstances. The invigorated culture of land 



PLAN OF EMANCIPATION. 339 

would call for more labor, and all our laboring whites find 
homes and employment — becoming in turn consumers of the 
produce of the towns. Education would become practicable 
and universal; labor be scientific, productive, and honorable, 
because free. Then would there be no more fears of insurrec- 
tion, civil war, and unknown disaster: each one could sit under 
his own vine and fig-tree, and there would be none to make 
him afraid. 

We call upon slaveholders to look upon this picture, practi- 
cally. Weigh on one side emancipation, its certain advantages 
and its safety : on the other, slavery, its dangers — its turmoils 
— its catastrophe : and then say if we are mad when we ask 
you in all good feeling to carry out our system. 

If they are however bent on their melancholy and blind de- 
votion to slavery, they have but to open their eyes and see long 
lives of tumult, insult, angry strife, insubordination, and running 
away with slaves, agitation, in strife of mobs suppressing 
papers, imprisoned citizens, murdered patriots, broken constitu- 
tions, lost liberties, then at last civil war, anarchy, despotism, 
and death. We pray you, my countrymen, not to deceive your- 
selves ; be assured that though you may carry the victory over 
the True American, and a hundred other such papers, your 
work is but just begun. The world is your foe, and truth, 
religion, and justice, its ally. As sure as God rules omnipotent 
in the heavens, you will fall at last, and bitter indeed will be 
the end. 

The great objection against my plan seems to be that coloni- 
zation is not annexed to it. Now if colonization is agreeable 
to the mass of our citizens, and found practicable, we say, amen. 
We do not object to colonization. We are for emancipation at 
all events. We are for anything but slavery. Give us liberty 
and take all things else. We are a life-member of the coloni- 
zation society : we have paid our twenty dollars : until our 
defamers show their works let them be dumb ! We are for 
colonization as a means of Christianizing Africa. We do not 
honestly regard it as a remedy for slavery. We believe the 
obstacle to liberty, is the pecuniary loss from emancipation : 
does colonization add to this loss ? Then how can it aid the 
cause? We put it thus. Suppose we were to say that we 
would not go for emancipation unless J. J. Astor should give us 
a legacy of a million of dollars at his death. The improbability 



340 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

of such an event would readily show the absurdity of our con- 
ditions ; yet does any one suppose us so silly as to refuse such 
a legacy ? Not at all. 

We say then to colonizationists, come on ; aid us first to 
liberate ; and we will aid you to emigrate. Let us not differ, 
but unite in the same cause. Let the end of all be tiie same— 
the salvation of our country, and the freedom and Christianity 
of the world. 



LEXINGTON, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER IL 

The Annexation of Texas. 

Americans, thus far the slaveocracy has trampled the Consti- 
tution under foot, and tisurped a power unknown to its letter 
or spirit, in annexing this foreign slave nation to us. Shall we 
tamely sit by and see this damnable deed accomplished ? Who 
is a traitor to his country? He who defends her laws and her 
rights, or he who tramples upon both ? We are proud in the 
avowal once more, that for one, we never will submit quietly to 
this horrible consummation. Had we physical power we would 
as quickly resist it, as we would a foreign nation's invasion of 
our soil by fire and sword. Shame on the craven spirit that 
would cower before a seeming or real majority, and give up to 
hopeless despotism by saying the thing is done, and resistance 
is useless ! Americans ! in the name of the oceans of patriot 
blood poured out in the cause of libeily in all ages; by the im- 
mortal soul and its undying aspirations ; by the shame, the 
sorrow, the suffering, and tears, and crushed hopes of the op- 
pressed living and dead, and yet to be born, let not Constitu- 
tional Republicanism be now vitally stabbed, and the hopes of 
mankind perish for ever ! Say now, my countrymen, that this 
thing shall not be done ! When we hear one ask how will this 
affect cotton, another, how will it influence manufactures and 
trade, and another, how will it affect every party ? — -when we 
see so much trimming, so much base subserviency cloaked un- 
der the thread-bare rags of self complacent and sagacious expe- 
diency ; so little faith in justice, in truth, in mercy ; so little re- 



INDIAN SUMMER. 341 

verence for God or man — we are sick at heart ! Can liberty 
be bought with gold, or is gold worth the loss of liberty ? Or if 
it were possible, to secure property, and for the base body to be 
clothed and fed in security, in slavery, what have we gained 1 
The soul — the immortal part — too, must be fed and sheltered ; 
man does not live by bread alone ! Oh. Henry ! indeed thou 
wert not mad w^hen, in great woe, thou didst cry, " Give me 
liberty, or give me death ! " 



Indian Summer. 

That season of the year which is said to be peculiar to the 
Mississippi valley has come. The air is pure, calm, and genial ; 
the sun seems unusually brilliant ; rising in the morning, its 
rays are refracted by the slight hazy smoke which pervades 
the whole atmosphere, which magnifies its size, and gives it a 
warm crimson hue. As it ascends higher in the heavens, and 
its beams assume a more perpendicular direction, the smoky 
medium is lessened in mass, and it now shines with a white, 
and brilliant, and glorious light. For six weeks it hardly ever 
rains; not a cloud is seen, and not a breath of air stirs the 
leaves, which now begin to fall like Newton's apple, as if im- 
pelled by some unknown and mysterious will. 

There has been much speculation among travellers and natu- 
ralists, about the cause of the haziness of the atmosphere. In 
our mind the cause is certain, and known. So soon as the 
frost has cut down the leaves, and the dry weather sets in, the 
farmers begin to burn logs, brush, and briers ; the prairies are 
set on fire to burn away the old grass, to give place to the 
young and succulent herbage of the spring, or to force game 
into the stands of the hunters. The immense mass of moun- 
tains and waste lands, lying between the great valley and the 
Alleghany mountains, are set on fire from various motives, or 
from acci'dent. Sometimes they are burnt by chesnut gather- 
ers, to clear the leaves from the fruit, that they may find it 
more readily, as the rough exterior hull or burr, prevents the 
fruit from being injured by the fire. In passing from Wheel- 
ing to Baltimore we remember to have witnessed the most sub- 
lime spectacle of miles of woods on fire by night ; when, 
turning some sharp angle of the mountain, the great sea of 



342 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

fire was spread before us ! The leaves, fallen logs, and dead 
trees, are all consumed, and sometimes immense tracts of 
country are swept of briers and shrubs ten feet high, by the 
devouring flames. As the smoke, when cool, is of a specific 
gravity greater than the atmosphere, it sinks down into the val- 
leys, and spreads itself over the great west. No winds disturb 
and dissipate it, and it remains, some times so pungent as to 
affect the eyes, until the rains of November extinguish the fires 
and the searching blasts of coming winter sweep it away. In 
passing from the lowlands to the upper waters of the Kentucky 
river, on our autumn hunts, this cause is very manifest. In 
Fayette or Madison counties, and the country round about, the 
air is merely misty,' not at all unpleasant to the eyes ; but as 
you approach the mountains the mist grows more dense, and at 
times we have been compelled to move our tents in regions 
more remote, when the woods were on fire in the neighborhood, 
so intense was the smoke, and so pungent to the eyes. 

We suppose every one is more or less affected by the change 
of the seasons. Some prefer one, some another. The gay and 
cheerful, and industrious, perhaps, most love the spring. Whea 
the grass grows green, and the buds are bursting, and blossoms 
are opening, and birds are singing, and all nature seems turned 
out into one universal jubilation, there is a responsive swell in 
the bosoms of the young, the hopeful, the gay. Behold the 
beautiful girl, just budding into womanhood ; what harmony 
between soul and body and all surrounding nature-^liealth, 
purity, beauty, and promise. The inspiration of the blossom- 
scented gale, seems right incense for such a temple of purity 
and beauty. The voice is electric with the glad notes of a hap- 
py soul, and the pleasure of simple existence, harmonious with 
the laws of nature — ^sweeter far than the Jilolian breeze, or the 
song of birds. On her pupils of dilating transparency, as on 
the heavens, beautiful and many tinctured forms and colors of 
earth, fall and leave no trace ; but the joyous spirit gives back 
its unstained loveliness, which language cannot convey, nor 
physical existences delineate ; and this, men call divine. They 
too are responsive — the hearts, the hopes, the minds of boys. 
Ambition now, like exhilarating gas, fills- them with glorious 
anticipations of wealth, conquest, love, admiration, and fame. 
This is the drunkenness of life ; welcome, then, spring to these ; 
heaven put off the hour of soberness ! But it comes at last. 



INDIAN SUMMER. 343 

Ah me! — the faltering step, the languid, blood-shot eye, the 
shriveled cheek, the anguished soul ! Pain, perfidy, poverty, 
hate, envy, slander, crime, have come at last, and the drunkeu 
are sobered ! 

Shattered are the leaves of flowers ; withered the blades of 
grass; bare the boughs of trees ; hushed the song of birds ; na- 
ture mourns her departed joys, and to the miserable welcome is 
the fall ! Yet is there not something left? nothing gained by 
experience, self-possession, strength, wisdom, greatness of soul ? 

Yes ; the flower is gone, but the fruit — if one were at pains to 
gather it, lies hid in the rough and uninviting hull. 

Come, then, ever welcome autumn, to the thoughtful, the con- 
templative, the serene ! Nature, ever kind and true, and for- 
giving, and providing parent, has something even for the mise- 
rable and sobered sons of earth. 

Men of leisure, the air, if not exhilarating, is bracing and 
healthful. The chesnut and hickory nut lie under the trees ; 
there is game in the brakes, quails in the stubble, pheasants in 
the fern, deer and turkeys in the forest, bass and pike in the 
streams. Anglers, gunners, netters, ahoy ! 3Ien of wealth and 
show, the earth is firm to the foot of the blooded steed ; up for 
the gilded coach, for travel, and away ! Men of business, on 
with the bang-up coat, and the long whip ; and with mules, and 
cattle, and horses, and hogs, off to Charleston, and "Porkopolis ;" 
and in leathern purse bring back the guilty god. Let the " cit," 
with his ironed hat and polished boots, shuffle from home to the 
shop, and from the shop to the house ; the merchant praise his 
" articles ;" the banker count his gold ; the doctor kill his pa- 
tient ; the lawyer strip his client ; the preacher wool his flock. 
We are off for a mountain hunt. A club of four is the num- 
ber ; all clothed in thick leaf-colored linsey, that will pull up 
a brier by the roots, or break the snag of a black-jack hickory 
sooner than tear ; moccasins or coarse l)oots ; a leathern shot- 
pouch, with coon tail flap, and powder-horn ; a belt and butcher 
knife, and tomahawk, and rifle, from sixteen to thirty balls to 
the pound ; with a close fitting leather or fur cap, and the hun- 
ter is personally equipped ! Then, two tents, one for the ser- 
vants and one for the hunters ; camp stores, bedding, and an 
axe ; ground coffee, crackers, sugar, pepper, salt, baker's bread, 
and cornmeal, unbaked ; cheese, dried herring, and bacon, and 
a few crocks of butter, and pickles ; a camp kettle, aud frying 



344 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

pan, a tin cup, (silver is forbidden !) tin plate, and spoon, each, 
with knife and fork, a buffalo rug and blanket coat, with a car- 
pet bag of sundries ; the four on horses, and away ! If you 
have arranged your business, well ; if not, let it go ; all the 
year you may attend to business — hunting time comes but once. 
If your wife loves you, she is glad to see you enjoy yourself; 
if she does not, you had better be in the mountains ; " fire in 
the mountains " is more tolerable than fire at home ; so, in 
either case, it is better to be off! 

Two days' journey brings us to the upper Kentucky or Cum- 
berland. Find some level spot, near a mountain rill, and shel- 
tered by rocks from the cold winds, and then pitch tents. In 
the first place, halter the horses ; then all hands assist in get- 
ting up the tent ; some spread down all the rugs on leaves 
gathered up ; each man's carpet bag forms his pillow, and the 
four blankets for covering, all make a most delightful bed. 
Others get wood. This is laid across the mouth of the tent, 
and beyond, a sheet is hung across a pole, to act as a chim- 
ney ; never fail to hang this sheet ; it prevents effectually the 
smoke from entering the tent, which deters many good fellows 
from hunting at all. As you approach the camp ground you 
must provide turnips, potatoes, and corn for the horses. 

As soon as all things are made ready and comfortable, then 
you may either make a hunt, or rest yourself after the fatigues 
of travel. The next morning, each one takes a separate route, 
and the hunt commences. The country is either mountain- 
ous or table land, or both ; with deep ravines, rocks and 
benches, covered with chesnut, white oak, and beach, hazel 
bushes, black-jack, and green briers, mostly. You steal gently 
along, and shoot such game as you like, or can find — deer, 
bears, turkeys, pheasants, quails, and squirrels. When a deer 
is shot down, load again, the first thing, and then approach, and if 
he is approachable, bleed him, bend a sapling, hang him, 
take out his entrails, strip the skin from the haunches, cut them 
off, and tie the legs together with the skin, swing them like a 
shot pouch, and off to camp. If you wish to pursue the hunt, 
run up the sapling top with a fork, cut by your tomahawk, so 
that he may be out of the reach of the wolves, and leave him 
till you return from camp, and get a horse and pack him in. 
If ravens are about, it is well to tie a handkerchief to the deer, 
to scare them away. 



INDIAN SUiMMER. 345 

The hunt for the morning being over, now for cooking and 
eating. If turkeys or jDheasants are killed, roast them on spits ; 
if a deer, put on the camp kettle, well-filled with pure water, 
cut the ribs, back bone, and neck into small pieces, and after 
well washing them, put them into the kettle ; then peel the 
turnips and potatoes, and put them in, then salt, and a few 
pods of red pepper, and a few grated crackers, and boil it all 
well together : the longer the better : dish it, and with buttered 
bread — corn cake baked on a clean chip cut from a tree — kings 
might envy you ! For if they ever had as good a dish, of 
which we are not certain, they never had as good an appetite, 
of which we are certain ! Then wind up with a roasted potatoe 
and butter, or a cup of good coffee. Perhaps we might just as 
well tell our better-selves here how to make good coffee. First get 
good coffee, and '• a heap of it ;" roast it very sloivly, and to a 
dark cinnamon color, no more ; only grind it when used, or if 
ground, keep it in a close vessel ; let the water be boihng all 
sorts of ways before you put the coffee in, and jjut it all in — 
all that yon have got^ and all that your neighbors have got ; 
let it boil just as long as you would have a half-boiled egg, and 
no longer. You then have the aromatic flavor of the coffee. 
If you roast it black, forget to put any coffee in the vessel, or 
boil it two days and nights, or boil the same grounds over again 
for a few months ; then, by all means, give us stump water, 
greasy milk, rue, or rhubarb, but don't give us coffee, madam ! 
AH this cooking, if you have not a well-taught servant, must be 
done by yourself ; that is, let him do the mechanical part, you 
show him how it must be done. A clean split log makes au 
excellent table, and needs no cloth. The hunt being over, then 
before the cheerful fire, stretched on the rugs, you forget the 
rascally world — tell anecdotes — the adventures of the day — 
praise camp fires — rig the green horns, if any — if you ever 
" licpior," now's the time — never drink of a morning — ^if you 
drink at all, drink at night, or what is better, not at all — or if 
you will not be persuaded, then drink — water ! If you are in 
the reacli of civilization, have a venison supper: clear off the 
planks : get a fiddle or so, and gather the " gals " together, and 
then for a real, unsophisticated, heart and soul frolic. But be 
sure you never tell your wife about it : if you do, the next time 
you start, your horse will be crippled, and your tent made into 
carpet rags. 



346 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

We have seen as many as twenty deer hung around camp 
at once. If they are to be brought in, they should not have 
the hide taken off. When you have hunted ten days, or two 
weeks, and have game enough, and begin to want to see the 
children^yes, and the children's mamma, too ! shng tents, 
pack the game, and be off. Roast the saddles of the venison : 
stew the ribs : spit the pheasants and quails : invite your friends : 
eat, drink, and be merry. Single men cannot resist the myste- 
rious influence which besets them, from the lovely lassies, whosq^ 
lips receive a more inviting polish from stripping a deer's rib. 
There's more blood in the cheek, more fire in the eye, and more 
love in the breast, and more soul in one real woman at a hun- 
ter's table, that would make ten of your pickle eating, coal 
chewing, famished beauties. As for the hunter's wife, she loves 
him as if she had never been married to him, unless by ill-luck 
he speaks of the " frolic," when she downs upon him like a sum- 
mer cloud ! Who shall say there is not poetry in woman and 
the Indian summer ? 



LEXINGTON, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 18. 

Why Mechanic Arts cannot Flourish in Slave States. 

In slave states, the tendency of things is for land to accumu- 
late in the hands of a few. The former occupants of the soil 
emigrate to new countries. Now, B. is a saddler ; he supplies 
twenty farmers with saddles ; well, if no depopulation takes 
place, he may live on very well ; but what are his children to 
do ? Make saddles too ? There is no one to buy : the father 
supplies the demand. Sell saddles in the great marts of com- 
merce? That is impossible ; because slave states do not afford 
roads and canals, and such facilities of transportation as the 
free states. And even if the roads were made, there is not divi- 
sion of labor and energy enough to enable the maker of saddles 
in slave states to sell as cheaply as saddlers in the free states, 
B.'s^ children are then left without employment; for all other 
trades are full as well as that of saddle making. Hence, in the 
great mass of slave states, free white laborers are necessarily 



THE GAIN OF SLAVERY. 347 

impoveiislied ! But suppose half of B.'s customers buy out the 
other half; B.'s means are reduced one half: he becomes poorer. 
Suppose one buys out the other nineteen of the twenty farmers, 
filling the twenty farms with slaves ; then B is ruined : he can't 
sell but one saddle : he is out of bread, and must move, or die ! 
Thus the tendency of slavery is to destroy every free white 
laborer, or reduce him to the physical necessities and mental 
subserviency of the black slave ! The state loses all her middle 
class ; effeminate aristocracy ensues on one hand, and abject 
slavery on the other. Tliis is barbarism ! 



What does the Slaveholder gain by Slavery? 

We say now nothing of its influence upon the temper, the 
mind, the body ; we say nothing of its indolence, prodigality, 
injustice, and crime; we say nothing of "lust, fire, poison, and 
insurrection," which its advocates affect to dread whenever the 
cry of wolf suits them. Can slaveholders stand against the 
physical power of neighboring states ? They cannot ! Money 
is tlie sinew of war ; the fighting of the world is done not in the 
battle-field only ; in the coal mines, the iron foundries, the cotton 
factories, the structure of rail-roads, steam cars, and steamboats, 
in the workshop, and in the scientific culture of the soil — there 
is the battle of conquest and dominion fought in the nineteenth 
century. It is proved in the above article, that in all these 
freedom rules it in triumph over slavery ! How then can slave- 
holders stand ? They nmst fall ! As soon as the national 
Union is knocked from under them, they fall an easy prey to 
the first invader ! If nations of equal power are at war, which 
concjuers ? The one that can first concentrate its force upon a 
given point, other things being equal. There is no plainer 
problem than this in the art of war. Now if the free states, by 
superior internal improvements, and larger capabilities of endur- 
ance in the field, by accumulated capital, to say nothing of 
strength of limb and spirit, can sooner concentrate their forces 
than the South, and longer keep them there, when met, is not 
victory already theirs ? Come now, ye testy and valiant cham- 
pions of the 18th of August, answer us ! Are you not far-seeing 
and able statesmen to lay us all powerless at the feet of those 



348 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

"damned fanatics of the North?" We tell you the time is 
coming when high-sounding words will not avail you ! When 
hard knocks in some coming time shall fall fast and heavy upon 
the heads of you or your children — remember the 18th of Au- 
gust ! and write down in a book, if you have any, .who was the 
True Ameiican ! and who, the " traitor, fanatic, and madman !" 



Spirit of the People. 

In giving on our first page the " spirit of the press and of the 
people," we have omitted the hundreds of abolition meetings of 
sympathy for us, and denunciation of the mob, because their 
opinions would have no weight with the people of the slave 
states just now. We are neither afraid nor ashamed to acknow- 
ledge our gratitude. If we had thought proper to have slandered 
the hundred thousand abolitionists of the North, some say we 
never would have been mobbed ! Had we been as base as those 
who make the sviggestion, we would now be lolling in some fat 
office, and " hurrah for Cash. Clay," uttered by some foxy-headed 
negro children, would never have caused "respectable" men to 
make fools of themselves ! Whilst we say thus much, we must 
tell the liberty party and abolitionists, that to reproach us for 
not deserting our party is, to say the least, in exceeding bad 
taste. Do they suppose that a man can change his principles 
as he can his coat ? Or would they have us degraded enough 
to desert what we conceived to be the highest interest of our 
country, through personal pique, the ingratitude of friends, or 
disappointed ambition l There are selfish and base apostates 
enough in this Union. Heaven give us spirit to bear all things 
for our country, and the liberty of men ! 



Elevation op Labor — Fourierism — Factory Strikes — 
The World's Convention. 

Having in reality the same sympathy with laborers as with 
capitalists and no more, because both are men and have equal 
claims upon us as such, we consider ourselves in a very fair 
position to give an impartial word upon these several projects 



LABOR, FOURIERISM, ETC. 349 

of "the elevation of labor" which stands at the head of our 
columns as one of the purposes of this journal. First, then, 
we have no faith in society's ever having a very decidedly dif- 
ferent organization from what it now has, and which it has had 
from the earliest historical times. We believe that there are 
essential differences in the organization of men — in the mind — • 
in the body — in the senses, and in the sensibilities. That God 
designs some for honorable places, or the first places, descending 
down to positions of neutrality or public indifference : as in a 
single man, there is the head — the body — the legs — the feet — 
so in society there are men filling correspondent places. Or 
again : suppose society— its privileges — its possessions — its en- 
joyments — to be likened to the sea, men of different capabilities 
mental and physical, as bodies of different density or specific 
gravity, rise or fall to their proper sphere, provided there be no 
obstructing force. 

So far then as we understand Fourierism, we regard it as 
opposing, to some extent, natural laws. You cannot make all 
labor agreeable ; because some labor to persons of certain de- 
grees of refinement is essentially disagreeable, which to others 
is neutral or indifferent, because of a coarser structure. You 
cannot place a higher motive in the breast of any man than an 
enlightened self-interest ; a man who will not labor for himself, 
will not labor for another ! If one man by himself is incapable 
of taking care of liimself and family, when allied to another of 
tlie same sort he will hardly better his condition. We know 
that there is some gain in the economical laws by association; 
such as several families eating at the same table ; using a com- 
mon fire; a common garden; pump, and all that;' but these 
gains already exist in society as at present organized, whilst in- 
dividuality of person and property are still preserved just so far 
as each one likes. We have known several persons to keep 
house together, very harmoniously and more economically than 
if living separately. But then they were of peculiar tempera- 
ments, and similar tastes. AVe do not undertake to say that 
Fourier association will not prosper ; on the contrary, some of 
them no doubt will turn out well. We mean to say that they 
will never supersede the present order of society. We wish 
they may do nmch good ; and at all events evolve some new 
truth which may be usefully engrafted upon the old stocks — the 
present organization of stales. ; 



350' THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

Upon the subject of trades unions and factory strikes, we 
believe that no laws ought to be made to prevent them ; at the 
same time we are convinced that they rarely, if ever, do the 
working classes any good, whilst they often do infinite evil. 
So far as persons "striking" undertake to hinder others from 
laboring in the same trade by force, we regard it as the most 
infamous despotism — another name for lynch or mob law, which 
is at war with all order and human society. Suppose the capi- 
tahst or head manufacturer is making more than a fair interest, 
and the laborer is worked harder than is right, and does 
not receive a just proportion of the common product ; what is 
the remedy ? Let the laborers combine and start a factory 
themselves ; or if they have no|. the means, let them intelli- 
gently show how a large piofit may be made, and as sure as 
death some new capitalist will come in and employ them at 
such rates as can be afforded. The truth is, capital is generally 
quick sighted. If A and B are making too large profits, G 
comes in and takes aw^ay a portion of the laborers of A and B, 
by giving them higher wages ; competition here, as elsewhere, 
always in the long run producing an equilibrium. If A, B, and 
C still give too little wages, D comes in. If A, B, and C give 
too much wages, C breaks, and his hands are thrown out of 
employment ! Suppose A, B, C, and D are making a living profit, 
and their hands receiving living wages and some reverse in 
trade takes place for the worse, they must stop or run at sacri- 
fice, or the wages must be reduced. If they stop, the hands 
must seek some other employment, or starve. If they run at a 
sacrifice they must do so only to keep the laborers up till better 
times — they go through^break — or stop. In this case the la- 
borer ought to work at the lowest possiole price at which he can 
live ; for it is his interest as well as his duty; unless some other 
employment of better pay offers itself Thus we have gone 
through all the stages of prospeiity and adversity in manufac- 
turing, and assure our countrymen and countrywomen, that a 
strike is not the remedy in our judgment, in any case whatever. 

We have no objection to a county convention or a national 
convention— or if it please them more — even to a " World's Con- 
vention" upon any subject whatever. " The free communica- 
tion of thoughts is one of the invaluable rights of man." But 
the late World's Convention was the richest thing of the day. 
We never shall be able to cancel the deep obligation of gratitude 



FOURIERISM— THE WORLD'S CONVENTION, ETC. 35X 

which we owe that convention. We believe we should have 
died of the mob, had it not been for the report of their proceed- 
ings in The New-York Tribune. There is one man of eminent 
genius in Gotham, and he is the reporter of The Tribune ! 
Reader, in whatever portion of the globe you are, eat, drink— 
and read that — and you shall be merry ! If you are sick, you 
shall laugh : and if laughing will make and keep you well — ■ 
you shall never be sick any more ! When ever before was Phi- 
lanthropy put to such exquisite torture? Some one no doubt 
put a bat's wing into our shoe? No. Caused a hare to run 
across our road ; put pealed alders into our well ; or jn some 
other mode ^'- tricked''^ us? No! They have no doubt called 
us jihilanthropist ! It's a wonder the people had not killed 



us 



If neither Fourierism, nor strikes, nor the " World's Conven- 
tion," are to be looked to for the elevation of labor, how shall 
we proceed? Repeal all laics which obstruct man in the use 
of all the powers ivhich God has given him : and then render 
those powers as perfect as possible! 

Under this broad rule slavery dies ! Under this broad rule it 
becomes the bouiiden duty of every nation under the sun to 
give all her citizens, as far as practicable, an intellectual and 
moral, and physical education, so as to give full scope to the 
body, the mind, and the afiections. Let every man have a fair 
start in hfc, and "the Devil take the hindmost!" If a man 
beats us fairly in the race, we say, well done — God speed you 
— we shall not repine ! But if you clog us, if you trip us, if 
you maim us, by laws of injustice destroying the power God 
and nature have given us — then by the eternal instincts of the 
undying spirit and unconquerable will — let the Heavens fall, 
and the earth crumble into dust, but we shall be righted ! And 
gods and men respond, Amen ! 

What then, are those legal clogs which obstruct us in life's 
race? That law of the South which subjects three millions 
of men to the absolute will of others, and near five millions 
more to the desolating influences of slave labor, is one. All 
laws of privilege, as in our state, when the county courts are a 
self-perpetuating body, is one. All monopolies such as banks 
where citizens are forbid to bank, and roads of toll, where per- 
sons are forbid others, when they become more profitable to 
individuals than to the public, are such ! A bank, so long as 



352 WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

it confines itself to affording a safe and portable currency, and 
facilities of exchange, &c., and a fair rate of interest to stock- 
holders, though in one sense a monopoly, — yet is a monopoly 
for the public good — it is the state's machine. But when it 
becomes a shaving shop in the hands of its friends and owners, 
stripping the labor of the country by usurious profit, then it is 
an unfair clog upon industry — foul play in the race of life — and 
should die. 

We have given these briefly as examples of what we mean, 
believing that the rule we have laid down is a good one, and 
broad enough to embrace all the ends of the " World's Conven- 
tion ! " and certainly as practicable as some of tlieir schemes 
of amelioration of society's ills ! " 

In conclusion, we recommend less haughtiness and indiffer- 
ence on the part of the rich towards the poor, and less invidi- 
ousness toward the rich on the part of the poor. In a word, 
let true Christianity prevail, and earth will become the fore- 
shadowing of Heaven. 



LEXINGTON, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25. 

The Unconstitutionality op Slavery, by Lysander 
Spooner, Boston, 1845. 

This pamphlet, of 156 pages, we have read through very 
carefully ; and although it is full of elaborate research, and 
able and plausible argument, yet it fails to convince us of its 
truth. We are satisfied that slavery exists in all the old thirteen 
States, where it now exists, constitutionally. We have a 
phrase in the West that is very coarse, but to the point : so far 
as the Constitution sanctions slavery, it is best frankly " to 
acknowledge the corn." Every argument which is merely 
specious, but really, in the honest convictions of sensible men, 
untrue^ weakens the cause, however good. Surely the cause 
of liberty and political equality of rights needs no meretricious 
aids ! Words are intended to convey meaning : we know not 
how it may affect others, but for ouiself, when we read the 
Constitution of the United States, we feel as surely as we read, 



RELIGION AND SLAVERY. 353 

that slavery is there alluded to, and allowed to the States then 
in being, and parties to the contract. The North reluctantly 
yet certainly became a joint actor in this crime against man. 
Let them now, while it is to-day, rise up in their power and 
w^ash their hands of this thing ! Saying in a manly and consti- 
tutional mode, we will no longer give the lie to the Declaration 
of 1776 ! 



Re 



ELIGION AND ►SLAVERY, 



We have before us " A condensed anti-slavery Bible argu- 
ment, by a citizen of Virginia," a pamphlet of 90 pages : New 
York, 1845. We are ever pained when we see or hear religion 
and slavery mentioned in connexion. Here, we confess, we lose 
all that charity which we can at times feel towards the greatest 
criminals, and the worst of crimes. We imagine that no one 
looks upon the lion and the snake with the same feelings, al- 
though death may be threatened by both. Go to the field of 
battle, and see the brains scattered from the crushed skull, or 
the great gush of the hearts blood ! and the greatest work of 
God has been marred ! This sight is horrid enough. But go 
to the gloomy chamber of the victim of secret poison ! See the 
wasted form — the anguished eye^the dread of frieud and foe — 
the horrible war of the necessary craving for food — and the 
instiactive keen sense of fatal poison — now, when all tliat God 
has intended for support in the trying hour, are turned into the 
Ijjttcrest curse — look there, misery and madness struggling for 
supremacy — and cold, certain, inevitable death, the sole arbiter 
and giver of rest ! Tell us now the untaught impulse of the 
heart of man, is not this worse than death in the battle field ? 
Go see the " cat o' nine," buried in the flesh of the unprotected 
slave — see his ashy shriveled form — his rags — his foul and com- 
fortless hut — tear him from his home — blot out from his eye the 
loved images of wife, children, and friends — ^and who are the 
men who do this thing ? Every citizen who. by his vote, allows 
the vilest wretch to do the deed with impunity ! But the citi- 
zen was born to it : love of wealth, pleasure, and pride, have 
usurped the place of unbought conscience. Many palliatives 
come to his help: and if conscience awakes, heaven help us ! 
23 



354 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

there is a great, and merciful, and omnipotent God, who can 
purify the most deep stained soul, and upon repentance, make 
the tortured spirit happy once more. 

But when and how shall we class that man who knocks from 
under our tottering and weary feet, this last scafTolding of hope, 
and makes God himself the worst of tyrants — the falsest of friends 
— the most unjust of fancied existences? The man who 
attempts to justify slavery from the Bible, is that man ! If he 
wins us to his opinions, he makes us an infidel — we lose our 
belief in the existence of a God — our idea of the immortality 
of the soul — all distmction between right and wrong — we sink 
from the man into the beast — we would not scruple to murder 
our mother for a meal of victuals — or scatter the desecrated re- 
mains of a dead sister, or father, or wife, to manure our cucum- 
ber vines ! We thank God that instinct is stronger than reason- 
ing, and conscience more powerful than argument. We do most 
sincerely believe, and we deliberately weigh what we say, that 
all the books and papers which have been written to prove 
slavery a divine institution, have never convinced a single man 
or woman that it was right — no not one! We have not read 
the argument above referred to : life is too short for a man to 
read a long discourse to prove that a man may not murder bis 
father, or sell his country for gold, or enslave his fellow man ! 
If then we will not and cannot read the argument of our able 
friend, " A Virginian," in defence of the right, what shall we 
say of the God defying defender of the wrong .^ We promised 
to give the " Alabama Preacher," and his class, a round, when 
we got cool : we now postpone it for ever, for until this misera- 
able and dying being of ours becomes yet most deserving of all 
the ills that flesh is heir to, we never can associate in our mind 
religion and slavery, without the most unqualified loathing, and 
hot indisrnation ! 



LEXINGTON, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2. 

County Courts. 

The county court system of Kentucky has long been regarded 
by the people of Kentucky as a " nuisance," and has grown so 



MURDER. 355 

corrupt as to be intolerable. It is notorious that one of these 
conservators of the peace was president of the mob, and another 
one the avowed originator of it. Is there no statute in the com- 
monwealth to punish perjury? They would no doubt plead 
like the other rebels — necessity ! For, in truth, there is no 
doubt, if a convention shall be called, that these perjured '* re- 
spectable gentlemen," and all their associates, will be quickly 
trounced from their places, which they have dishonored so long! 
Our government is based upon the principle that no man, or set 
of men, shall have exclusive privileges, and that taxation and 
representation are co-ordinate. But here is a body, self-existent, 
and perpetuating itself, not at all dependent upon the people, 
who arc allowed to tax us just as much as they please, without 
our consent, and without any responsibility whatever ! And 
this is not all : after leading a life of ignorance and fraud, they 
become high sheriffs, to exercise the highest functions of the 
executive government. But they will not even do that which 
the law requires them to do, but most grossly and corruptly 
sell the office to the highest bidder ! We calmly put it to every 
man of self-respect — ^every lover of order — every respecter of 
morals, if this infamous excrescence on our republican constitu- 
tion should not be speedily removed as a " nuisance," utterly 
incompatible with our safety and happiness ? Oh ! but then, 
perhaps if a convention was called, the 31,000 slaveholders 
might be deprived of their exclusive privileges also ! So the 
600,000 must put up with all these existing and increasing 
abuses, for we learn that the office of clerk is also begun to be 
bought and sold ! But what else are we to look for but gross 
fraud, corruption, and crime, where slavery exists, and where 
the most " respectable men " avow force as the supreme law of 
the land 1 

Surely those who sow the wind, shall reap the whirlwind ' 



Murder. 



We learn that the citizens of Georgetown, Scott County, 
Kentucky, rather encouraged the murder of the poor Irishman, 
who beat C. in a drunken frolic ! Come, Mr. C. and E., can't 
you make out a case of " incendiarism " against this humble 



356 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

practitioner of the shelalah ? These Georgetown fellows were 
the most rampant agents in the affair of the 18th ! Of course 
they will acquit the murderer : the poor devil who was shot 
down in cold blood was a " nuisance !" What right had he to 
keep a doggery in that refined city ; and beat respectable men 
who happened to get drunk in his house as a compliment? 
Won't Messrs. F. and others call vipon the other Irish in the 
burgh, and order them in a friendly manner to be off? Has 
not Mr, R. S., got well enough, after his hard ride on the 18th, 
to call upon his fellow slave-traders in Fayette to gallop around 
the country to muster the faithful ? Surely one good turn de- 
serves another ! No doubt Messrs. Hunt, Dudley, and Waters, 
would consent to act as a committee, for party considerations 
ought not to be allowed to interfere in so grave a matter ; and' 
when the Irish are to be mobbed and murdered, it ought cer- 
tainly to be done " i7i a dignijicd manner ! " 



My name is not Bently ! 

Many of the Kentucky editors undertake to invite strangers 
to come and see slavery, and then they will not think so hardly 
of it ! A Louisville paper asks Horace Greeley to come and 
see, promising him " that he shall not be mobbed, tarred-and- 
feathered, roasted, nor eaten alive by the slaveholders." The 
impudence of the slaveocrats reminds us of a certain man named 
Bently. He was a most confirmed drunkard, but would never 
drink with a friend, or in public, and always bitterly denied, 
when caught a little too steep, ever having tasted liquor. One 
day some bad witnesses, as Horace would no doubt be, concealed 
themselves in his room, and when the liquor was running down 
his throat, seized him with his arm crooked and his mouth open, 
and holding him fast, asked him, with an air of triumph ; "Ah, 
Bently, have we caught you at last — you never drink, ha ? " 
Now one would suppose that Bently would have acknowledged 
the corn. Not he ! with the most giave and impassable face, 
he calmly, and in a " dignified manner," said, " Gentlemen, my 
name is not Bently ! " 



PENITENTIARY AND SLAVE LABOR. 357 

The Mason Meeting. 

The slaveholders seem to be very anxious to make themselves 
out afraid of their slaves ! Is it not enough to be despicable, 
without courting contempt and aspiring to be ridiculous '? 



Penitentiary and Slave Labor. 

We give to-day in our columns, from the Vicksburgh Sentinel, 
an article over the signature '• True Democratic Mechanic," 
and also from the Washington Union, a resolution of the New 
York democracy. 

The Vicksburgh mechanic can very wed see how penitentiary 
labor, when a man works for mere food and shelter, and coarse 
clothing, comes into powerful competition with his free labor. 
Slave labor is but another word expressing the identical thing. 
Now the New York boys suppose, that making the penitentiary 
labor free would injure them ; the Mississippi boy imagines just 
the contrary ! He supposes very rightly, that a man at liberty 
to do as he pleases would hardly put up with the wages of the 
convict and the slave ! Can it be possible that the democrats of 
New York are sappy enough to think, that Mason and Dixon's 
line protects them from the hard competition of slave laboi- ? or 
do they in good faith believe, that the free negro would work for 
less wages than the slave, and thus produce a cheaper article to 
come in con)petition with, and undersell the products of the 
white free laborer of the North ? They must either be knaves 
or fools ! 

There is l)ut one class of men in the North, who are appa- 
rently interested in slavery — the manufacturers. Because slaves 
and slave-owners are consumers of their goods, and not compe- 
titors. But in reality, this monopoly is no equivalent for the 
increased capacity of purchase, which would ensue if the South 
were free. In the long run, Nature's laws, justice, and enhght- 
ened political economy, are the same. The more production in 
the world the better, provided just and enlightened laws make 
a fair distribution of wealth. 



358 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

LEXINGTON, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 9. 

An Appeal to all the Followers of Christ in the 
American Union. 

To all the adherents of the Christian religion, Catholic and 
Protestant, in the American Union, the writer of this article 
would respectfully represent, that he is but a single individual 
of humble pretensions stiuggling with honest zeal for the liber- 
ties of his country and the conmion rights of all mankind. He 
sets up no claims to piety or purity of life ; but whilst he is him- 
self subject to all the infirmities of our common nature, he be- 
lieves in an omnipotent and benevolent God over-ruling the 
universe by fixed and eternal laws. He believes that man's 
greatest happiness consists in a wise understanding and a strict 
observance of all the laws of his being, moral, mental, and phy- 
sical ; which are best set forth in the Christian code of ethics. 
He believes that the Christian religion is the truest basis of 
justice, mercy, truth, and happiness, known among men. As 
a politician especially, does he regard Christian morality as the 
basis of national and constitutional liberty. He believes, that 
liberty of conscience was the antecedent of civil liberty, and that 
to Christianity did our fathers owe the emigration from the Old 
World, and our national independence in the New. He believes 
that there is now a crisis in the affairs of our nation, which calls 
for the united efforts of all good men to save us from dishonor 
and ruin. 

Slavery is our great national sin, and must be destroyed, or 
we are lost. From a small cloud, not laiger than a man's 
hand, it has overspread the whole heavens. Three millions of 
our fellow men, all children of the same Father, are held in 
absolute servitude, and the most unqualified despotisin. By a 
strange oversight, or self-avenging criminality of our fathers, an 
anti-republican, unequal, sham representation has given the 
slaveocracy a concentrated power which subjects the additional 
fifteen million of whites of this nation to the caprice and rule 
of some three hundred and fifty tliovsand slaveholders. They 
monopolize the principal offices of honor and profit, control our 
foreign relations, and internal policy of economical progress 
They have forced us into unjust wars — national bad faith — and 



APPEAL TO CHRISTIANS. 359 

large and unnecessary expenditures of money. They have 
violated, time after time, the national and state Constitutions. 
They have trampled under foot all of the cardinal principles of 
our inherited liberty — freedom of the press — liberty of speech- 
trial by jury — the habeas corpus, and that clause of the consti- 
tution which gives to the citizens of the several states the rights 
and privileges of citizens of each state. They have murdered 
our citizens — imprisoned our seamen — and denied us all redress 
in the courts of national judicature, by forcibly and illegally 
expelling our ambassadors — thus faihng in the comity, observed 
sacred by all nations, civilized, and savage, till now ! All this 
have we borne, in magnanimous forbearance, or tame subser- 
viency; till remonstrance is regarded as criminal; audit has 
become the common law of the land, in all the states, to mur- 
der in cold blood, and in a calm and " dignified manner," any 
American freeman, who has the spirit to exercise the constitu- 
tional, and natural, and inalienable rights of free thought and 
manly utterance! 

Now, in the name of that religion wdiich teaches us to love 
our neighbor as ourself — to do unto others as we would have 
others should do unto us — to break every yoke, and let the op- 
pressed go free — we pray every follower of Christ to bear testnuany 
against this crime against man and God : which tills our souls 
with cruelty and crime — stains our hands with blood — and 
overthrows every principle of national and constitutional liberty, 
for which the good and great soulcd patriots of all ages laid 
down their lives, and for which our fathers suffered, bled, and 
died. 

We pray you to set your faces against all those professed fol- 
lowers of Christ, who betray him in the house of his friends, and 
make God out the foimder of an institution which causes the 
most refined, enlightened, and " respectable men" in the state 
of Kentucky, where slavery exists in its most modified and 
lenient supremacy, to raise the black and bloody flag of "death 
to liberty of speech and the press !" 

We pray you in the name of liberty — our country — our com- 
mon humanity — and the God of all, who is no respecter of per- 
sons — to come to our help ! 

We know that in 1776 the prayers of the Church, went up 
from the closet, the altar, and from the field of battle to the 
Great Arbiter of the destinies of war; we believe that a time 
of equal danger and awful responsibility is at hand ; and we 



360 th6 writings of cassius m. clay. 

now ask that the prayers of the universal Church be uttered hi 
the cause of hberty once more. 

And as we beheve that it is not only our duty to pray but to act, 
we respectfuUy submit for your serious consideration, the follow- 
ing suggestions : 

I. That all ministers of religion, all over the Union, either in 
their sermons or in their prayers, once on every Sabbath 
solemnly warn their hearers against the special sin of slavery. 

II. That in all religious journals, a column be devoted to 
slavery — its economical statistics — and to moral remonstrance. 

III. That in all addresses of religious bodies, oral or written, 
when moral conduct is touched upon, that a solemn and special 
denunciation of slavery be made. 

IV. In the exercise of the elective franchise, that each chris- 
tian will honestly endeavor so to use that great and responsible 
privilege as, by all honorable, just, and constitutional means, to 
destroy slavery in this nation. 

We suggest, with great diffidence, for the consideration of 
Christians, a board of home ?tiissions, founded as follows : A 
common treasury, sustained by all sects of Christians, to be lo- 
cated in the city of New York. From this shall be sustained, 
at fair wages, as many missionaries, in the slave states, as the 
funds of the society, or the interest thereof when vested in stocks, 
will sustain. 1. Let an equal number of each sect represented 
be elected. 2. Let the ministers living in slave states be pre- 
ferred, if they can be procured. 3. Let them be instructed never 
to speak of slavery in the presence of blacks or slaves. 4. Let 
them for the present be confined to the states of Maryland, Vir- 
ginia, and Kentucky. Let them be instructed to preach in the 
counties where there are the fewest slaves. 5. Let them be men 
of ability, and, though not fanatical, self-sacrificing, and well 
versed in the political and economical bearings of slavery, as 
well as in its moral influences, so that they may be able to 
show tlie non-slaveholder how slavery impoverishes his family ; 
excludes them from schools, churches, the honors of the state, 
and the general advantages of civilization. 

We beUeve that a scheme of this kind would do infinite good. 
There could be no pretext for violence on the part of slavehold- 
ers, because the blacks would never hear. It would arouse a 
generous shame in the bosoms of our own clergy, and force 
many to make sacrifices in the cause of religion and liberty. 

Now, once more, in great yearning of spirit for the liberty of 



TOLERATION. 361 

our country, the happiness of mankind, and the glory of God, 
we pray you to question each one his own conscience. Never 
let it be said that our country called on us for help, in great 
woe, and none heeded Iier voice ! 

We ask all the friends of Constitutional liberty, and pure 
Christianity, to give the above an insertion in their religious and 
political journals — a request never before made by us. 



Toleration. 

The Catholic Advocate, of Louisville, gives his Protestant 
brethren, of the True Catholic, some hard hits. Let each sect 
stand by its own name and doctrines, and let others alone. 
There is woik enough to be done against the common enemy, 
without fighting each other. We despise persecution for opin- 
ion's sake, birth's sake, or nation's sake, or any other sake. Let 
virtue only be honored ! Native American, where are you ? 



LEXINGTON, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 16. 

Hogs going from Tennessee to Cincinnati. 

Several editors who violently oppose emancipation and free 
labor, wonder at the fact of a drove of fat hogs passing through 
Frankfort, to Cincinnati, Ohio, from Tennessee. Now, these 
hogs, after passing some himdreds of miles, at a great expense, 
to Cincinnati, are slain, packed, and sent right along side the 
place whence they started, on to the great marts of commerce ! 
So, cotton is carried from New Orleans to Lowell, made into 
coarse negro shirting, and sent back to whence it started ! Can 
there be a stronger proof of the advantages of free over slave 
labor than this? In Louisville you pay about ten cents a head 
for killing hogs ; in Cincinnati, the killer pays, on the contrary, 
the seller ten cents a head for the privilege of killing. Why the 
difference? In Cincinnati the hair is made into mattrasses, the 
bristles into brushes, the blood into some chemical preparations, 
the hoofs into glue, the fat into lard and oil. In Louisville 
'• Canaan" can't or won't do all these things ; hence hogs come 



362 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

from Tennessee, pass Louisville, and go on to Cincinnati ! And 
is a man to be mobbed and murdered for seeing these things, 
and crying out against them ? 

Hogs have ahnost ceased going over the mountains ; we fore- 
saw this when we opposed the raihoad. Tliey are too poor 
to buy. 

The time is not far distant when hemp will cease to be ma- 
nufactured in the interior of Kentucky, and, perhaps, even in 
the state ! Alas, our poor, slave ridden state ! 



Ingratitude. — The Ass'.s Kick 

One of the greatest trials to which we have ever l^een sub- 
jected, in a somewhat eventful life, is the ingratitude of men 
whom we have, in what they may call our better days, befriend- 
ed. We are not the man to reproach any one with favors con- 
ferred ; such a thing is repugnant to every generous mind. 
Yet, when ridicule is attempted, and insult added to injury, for- 
bearance ceases to be a virtue, by giving impunity to crime. 
We care not for the relentless and uncalled for war, which the 
editor of the American Democrat has waged, with a bitter vin- 
dictiveness for which we know no cause, upon us ever since we 
w^ere overpowered by a heartless mob ; but when he resorts to 
misrepresentation to show his subserviency to the stronger par- 
ty, he merits contempt and indignation. If we had gained but 
one subscriber since our misfortune, a generous mind would 
have forborne the taunt ; if we had gained more, as is the truth, 
an iionest man would have spurned the calumny. When Mr. 
E. Bryant w^as turned out of office by Mr. Tyler, homeless, 
friendless, and poor, our bowels of compassion were moved, and 
we contributed about seventy dollars out of our pocket to his 
penny sheet, the " Whig Rally," a page of which we never read, 
to keep his body and soul together ! Now, when he sees us 
robbed of thousands of dollars by a band of mobites ; slander- 
ed and persecuted on all sides, without crime — struggling al- 
most single-handed against the most powerful and relentless 
despotism that the world has seen- -he comes forward with a 
mean insinuation, the cowardly shadow of a lie, and gives us 
the ass's kick ! 



FREEDOM AND INSANITY. 



363 



Freedom and Insanity. 

We believe that we have before somewhere noticed the argu- 
ment attempted to be drawn from the sixth census in favor of 
slavery, because it was there proven, from figures, that there 
were more insane, blind, and deaf blacks among the free, than 
among the same number of slaves. Mr. E. Jarvis, of Dorches- 
ter, Massachusetts, in a pamphlet now before us, extracted from 
the "American Journal of the Medical Sciences," printed at 
Philadelphia, 1844, proves conclusively, by a direct reference to 
many towns in the several states North, that the census is 
grossly incorrect. Every grade of error prevails ; sometimes 
seven times as many insane blacks are reported, as actually ex- 
isted — all told — sane and insane. He concludes, however, with 
every man acquainted with the incapability of the negro's con- 
stitution to stand cold, that a comparison of the northern free 
blacks in a cold climate with slaves in a hot climate, where na- 
ture has evidently designed them to live, would prove nothing, 
even if the facts w^ere as stated by tlie census, which they 
are not ! 

Mr. Jarvis then takes up the southern free and slave blacks, 
upon the data that all the slave blacks are supported at private 
expense, and that the free fall into the public charge, and forms 
the following table : 



State or Territory. 


Slaves. 


Insane at 
private 
charge. 


One in 


Free colored 
population 


Insane at 
public 
charge. 


One in 


Dist. Columbia, 


4,694 


4 


1173 


8,361 


3 


2787 


Florida, . . 


25,717 


12 


2146 


817 







Arkansas, . . 


19,935 


13 


1533 


465 


8 


58 


Missouri, . . 


58,240 


50 


1164 


1,574 


18 


87 


Kentucky, . . 


182,258 


132 


1380 


7.317 


48 


152 


Tennessee, 


18;].059 


124 


1476 


5,524 


28 


198 


Missi8si[)j)i, 


195,211 


66 


2957 


1,366 


16 


85 


Louisiana, . . 


l(i8,452 


38 


76.57 


25,502 


7 


3643 


Alabama, . . 


253,532 


100 


2532 


203,9 


25 


81 


Georgia, . . 


280,944 


108 


2601 


2,753 


26 


105 


South Carolina, 


327,038 


121 


2702 


8,276 


16 


517 


North Carolina, 


295,817 


192 


1280 


22.732 


29 


7839 


Virginia, . . 


448,987 


327 


1372 


49,842 


54 


923 


Maryland, . . 


89,495 


99 


904 


62,020 


42 


1576 


Delaware, . . 

Slave States, . 


2,605 


21 


134 


16,919 


7 


2417 


2,485.984 


1407 


1766 


215,-507 


327 


659 



From this table it appears that in all the slave states there is 



364 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

one slave in every 1766 insane, and one free black in every 659 
insane. Now there is no force nor data of just comparison in 
any of these tables. All the free blacks are not supported at 
public charge. In Kentucky, and we presume in all the slave 
states, the masters liberating, are bound to maintain the freed 
man : so that he comes not to the public charge. And then, 
again, the old and useless are generally set free ; and an inac- 
curate census would prove nothing in comparing the worn-out 
and the miserable, struggling with a new life and poverty in old 
age, without vigor or self-reliance, with young classes of slaves. 
So if you go to the North, still a diihculty exists ; many of the 
free there have been slaves, and are unfitted by slavery, not by 
nature, for freedom ! Again, who can say whether the suffer- 
ings of the body may not be intolerable, whilst the mind is 
comparatively at ease, — or the mind wrecked with suffering, 
whilst the body is at ease ? — and which of the two is the greater 
woe ? and which first produces madness ? And should it turn 
out that despotism favors mental sanity; and liberty, insanity ; 
what then ? Shall we confine it to the blacks, or shall a Nich- 
olas take the reins of national control? Many of the most 
eminent British statesmen went mad. Intelligent foreigners, 
travelling among us, note that the faces of our people express 
disquietude, — that whilst we possess more physical comforts 
than the old monarchies, we seem to be far less mentally happy. 
It is natural that where fortune and all offices of honor and 
profit are open to the lowest individual, that there should be 
great energy of character, restlessness, and posting in the race ; 
it seems to be a reproach to a man to be behind in a race 
in a Republic, whilst the monarchist consoles himself that he 
could win if he was allowed ! The Yankee studies or labors 
for long hours ; the German or Fienchman sings or smokes, or 
fiddles, when the time of recreation comes. What then, shall 
republicanism be given up 1 By no means. The same reasons 
would impel us back once more to the savage state. We should 
think that republics were more subject to insanity : despotisms 
more liable to idiocy. The one loses mind at intervals, through 
over-wrought action of the brain : the other falls into stupidity, 
through inaction and original want of brain ! 

But it is time every where to cease talking about the blacks. 
The great question is now, whether African slavery shall be 
destroyed, or American liberty be lost ! 



JANUS-FACE. : - 3G5 

Janus-Face. 

If " constitutional legal liberty" be a gem of such estimable 
price, where were those dainty spoken men when it was trampled 
into the mire on the 18th of August, 1845 ? Because we would 
not betray the liberty of the press and quietly submit to the 
slave despotism, which we well knew slumbered with its Cerbe- 
rian heads and Cyclopean strength in every valley, and on every 
hill-top south of Mason and Dixon's line, the Whig was ready 
to denounce us as being of that egotistical class of conceited 
madcaps, who press into the first ranks of every cause, and in- 
jure it by their rashness ! How dare he now to come forward 
and find every thing lovely and glorious in Hampden's laying 
down his life for "constitutional hberty?" Is not this rank 
incendiarism 1 Will not the slaveholders of Virginia taste of 
his blood 1 



LEXINGTON, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 23. 

The Louisville Institute. 

Since our last notice of this extraordinary gathering of the 
knights of the scalpel and balances, fifty names have been added 
to the list of students. It now stands at 350, whilst Transyl- 
vania numbers about 150. For our part, we think the lives 
and safety of our people in imminent danger ! W^ould it not 
be well to appoint a committee of our most '' respectable citi- 
zens," to proceed forthwith to Louisville, and abate the " nui- 
sance ? " 



The Response. 

Well, the response to our appeal, which has come from con- 
ventions and meetings has filled a side of our journal for two 
months ! In the whole north not one meeting has stood by the 
Robbers ; and but owe so-called Whig press in all the free states 



366 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

■ — the Neiv York Coii?'ier and Enquirer — has justified the 
rebels ! Out of all Kentucky, one hundred counties, but four 
or five have sustained the mob by doubtful majorities, leaving" 
ahont 7iinety-jive against them ! Not one meeting in the 
slave states, leaving out Kentucky, has stood by the assassins ; 
whilst all the manly portion of the press, whig and democratic, 
have denounced them — in Baltimore, in St. Louis, in Louisville, 
and other places ! If the Courier and Enquirer and the Phila- 
delphia dinner committee prefer to honor those, who stood a 
thousand against one sick man — contending for tJieir liberty as 
well as his own — we shall not on that account, or for any man's 
sneers or blame, be jostled from the firm stand where honor and 
conscience place us ! Against them, too, as against the rebels 
of the 18th, we are ready to appeal to " Kentucky and to the 
world," and with unbroken faith, to abide the verdict ! 



Religion and Politics. — The W. Union. 

Religion and politics, from time immemorial, and, in all na- 
tions, till the United States sprung into an independent exist- 
ence, have been intimately united. The Jewish government 
was a theocracy. In the most celebrated nations religion and 
temporal aflfairs were intimately united, and the most eminent 
statesmen aspired to sacerdotal honors, as the first among men. 
The Pope is a temporal prince, as well as a teacher of divinity. 
The English church acknowledges the king or queen as its 
temporal and spiritual head ; and the high dignitaries of the 
church compose, in part, the House of Lords, one of the co- 
equal branches of legislation, and the highest court of judica- 
ture. The same thing prevails among savage and civilized na- 
tions ; and, during the last war, no prophet exercised as much 
power as the illustrious Tecumseh. The prominent nations of 
antiquity invoked (he gods in great emergencies of civil admin- 
istration, and solemnly implored their protection in peace and 
in war. The rape of Helen was deemed impious, and the 
cause of the destruction of Troy, which fell, all powerful as it 
was, under the wide-spread and indignant enthusiasm of confe- 
derated Greece. The very last great struggle for national re- 
generation among men, the French revolution, was caused by 



RELIGION AND POLITICS. 367 

the decay of religious feeling ; and it owes its bloody and unsat- 
isfactory result to impiety, and a defiance of the living, God. 

It is too true that ambitious men, insinuating themselves into 
sacred places, have often polluted them with blood and crime ; 
but it would be extreme hardihood to attribute to religion those 
relentless persecutions and selfish cruelties, which, it seems 
plain, would have been far more rampant if unrestrained by 
her divine institutions. 

The persecutions which our fathers received in the old world 
from the English and Scottish churches, made us jealous of 
priestly rule. We declared in our Constitution, that there 
should never be any '■'•religious test ;^^ and that "Congress 
shall make no law respecting an estabhshment of religion, or 
prohibiting the free exercise thereof" The same provisions 
were followed up in most of the state constitutions ; in Ken- 
tucky, and other states, clergymen are excluded from legisla- 
tive power. 

Now part of this is right, and part, in our judgnient, utterly 
wrong. As, on the one hand, we readily agree that a man's 
faith should not be the ground of giving him privileges not 
allowed to one of another faith ; so a man's faith should not 
disqualify Iiim for office, or take from him privileges which 
other men of a dilfercnt faith enjoy. And whilst we cheerfully 
agree, that " no religious test" should prevail, and "' no law res- 
pecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free 
exercise thereof" be made, we deny the justice, or policy, of 
excluding clergymen from office. 

The equilibrium of the different sects is our security against 
religious supremacy and intolerance ; and as it protects us out 
of doors, so would it protect us in legislative halls. It is ad- 
mitted, on all hands, that never before, in the history of nations, 
has any government become so suddenly corrupt as ours. We 
know that the first minds of the Union attribute this lamentable 
state of afiairs to slavery. Well, that may be true ; but if com- 
mon opinion, and the constitutional disqualification, had not 
driven our intelligent and large-souled divines from legislative 
halls, who does not believe that the warning voice of religion, 
and mercy, and far-sighted self-interest might have checked, if 
not destroyed, this national and deadly crime ? 

But a new era is dawning upon us. Standing, as we do, 
upon the very eve of national dissolution, and a total overthrow 



368 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

of republican liberty, the veil, which knavish or short-sighted 
men would throw around the religious sentiment of our people, 
and the national conscience is to be rent asunder for ever ! It 
will no longer answer the purpose of our God-defying rulers to 
attempt to smother every movement of virtuous sensibility, and 
manly truth, by crying out '■'•fanaticism /" The lovers of man- 
kind begin to give way to the undying virtues of the human 
soul, and to cry out, " What shall we do to be saved ?" For they 
feel — Ihey know — that great and imminent danger is at hand ! 
The counter cry is also heard from the cravens of power, who 
have too long trampled upon all things, human and divine, 
" What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou son of God, most 
high ? We beseech thee, torment us not !" 



A Mistake. 

A paragraph is going the rounds of the papers to the effect 
" that the slaveholders having driven us and our press out of the 
slate, are making it a precedent to do the same with other 
y presses." It is true they have stolen our press— and there are 
men enough in Lexington to jnit us out ! but here we are, 
and there are not men enough in Kentucky to " drive " us out 
of the state ! ! 



The Lowell Offering, for November, 1845. 

Is before us. We do not propose to speak of the literary 
merits of this little monthly ; it has been lauded by better judges 
than we profess to be, and we will only say that we deem it 
superior to many other periodicals of much higher pretensions. 

We were never more convinced of the " progressive " move- 
ment of modern times, than when looking in person on those 
lovely females of Lowell, and other portions of the North. 

We conceive that the factory system in the United States has 
proved : 

That labor and refinement are not incompatible. 

That labor is forwarded by intelligence and virtue. 



CONSTITUTIONAL LAW. 369 

That physical beauty is forwarded by moderate toil. 

That the mind may be instructed, the morals cultivated, and 
the physical development be fully attained, during a course 
of self-sustaining labor. 

That the interests of capital and labor arc inseparable, and 
not necessarily antagonistic. 

That association in large numbers does not necessarily de- 
moralize. On the contrary : That association aids economical 
accumulation, and improves the mind, and manners, and per- 
son, under Christian guidance. 

That cities are not necessarily abodes of vice. 

That inequality of fortune, and idleness, and wealth, on one 
hand, and pinching poverty on the other, are the greatest 
causes of crime and wretchedness. 

If these statements be true, as we feel confident the factory 
towns and associations prove, what are Christians and patriotic 
statesmen to do ? Wc answer : remove all oppression from 
labor : legislate for its elevation and success : without touch- 
ing upon the rights of capital. Give fair play to isolated 
labor. 

Thus will the rich be made secure, and the poor placed 
above want : and man's greatest happiness be achieved ! 

We would say something about the beauty of factory girls, 
wlio are given to free and wholesome exercise — for w^e profess 
to be a critical judge of these things — but we should be voted a 
*' mad incendiary," and so we keep dark ! 



Views of American Constitutional Law in its Bear- 
ing UPON American Slavery, by Wm. Goodell ; Utica, 

N.Y., 1845. ; ,. , 

This work, like Mr. Spooner's and Jay's, !is able and instruc- 
tive. But it is of no use to argue after that manner. The 
(hsease is of the heartland not of the head ! We tell you, that 
the American people know well enough that the bloody stam is 
upon them ! but they love its taint ! If we can't arouse the 
conscience, and ennoble the heart, our labor is lost. Heaven 
inspire our souls, and may the voices of the mighty dead and 
24 



370 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

living, thunder in our ears, till our hearts shall be moved to be 
just and fear not ! 



LEXINGTON, WEDNESDAY, DEC. 31. 
"Look at Her, and see where She stands !" 

Massachusetts is full of great men. She has great scholars, 
great merchants, great mechanics, great divines, and above all, 
a great laboring class. Her intelligence, her philanthropy, her 
religion, her virtue, her wealth, and above all, her love of 
liberty, place her prominently before the eyes of men. Standing 
as she did, at the head of the revolutionary movement, she has 
pursued unfalteringly the impulses of her own glorious, self- 
creating destiny. She declared all men equally entitled to life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and she has lived up to 
her declaration, and proved the high aspirations of the soul, 
true, by untold blessings, which cluster around the altar of her 
faith. We are free to confess, that when we went up to Massa- 
chusetts, and saw her "as she stood," with her people, her 
wealth, her improvements, her arts, her soul-stirring monu- 
ments of gallant achievement, the heavy and painful aspiration 
weighed upon our spirits, " O, that our native state was like 
this !" 

We have just finished reading in the Free State Rally, the 
speech of Stephen C. Phillips, delivered in Boston, on the 18th 
day of Nov., 1845, on the annexation of Texas. We do not 
know when we were so moved by any speech ! How shall 
we speak of this man? True, generous, lofty, intelligent, great- 
Bouled, are tame words in connexion with him ! He knows 
the crisis is at hand. He knows what Massachusetts is. He 
knows what Massachusetts has done. He is her son. He loves 
the glory of his native land. The map of the United States 
is before him — stretching from the frozen to the torrid zone, 
from sea to sea, from the rising to the going down of the sun ! 
embracing all climates and soils. Here lie the widest plains, 
the longest and highest ranges of mountains, the largest and 
most far-reaching rivers, the sublimest scenery ! Inland seas. 



MASSACHUSETTS. 371 

^reat sea coast, Harper's ferry, the mammoth cave, the Falls of 
Niagara, the great prairies of the west, in giant nature appeal- 
ing eternally to the depths of the human mind, seem to make 
us the nation of God on earth ! 

Century after century had come and gone, nations had been 
born and had died, governments formed and perished, philosophers, 
and statesmen, and scholars, had reasoned, and studied, and 
concentrated the wisdom of ages, and the experience of untold 
years, and the art of printing had fixed them and spread them 
among the masses of men, and the Christian code had taught 
them the individual worth of man, equally entitled to the goods 
of earth, and the divine favor and glorious inmiortality. But 
old worn out forms — the cast off crysalis of regenerated man 
obstructed the new expansion of his higher nature, and he 
found not in Europe, nor Asia, nor the isles of the sea, nor 
Africa, a ])ome. 

Then for the first time, and in the nick of the necessity, this 
new world was opened up to the view, and this glorious theatre 
epread out to liberty and virtue ! 

He came through much suffering and wo, for it must needs 
be through fire that the soul is purified, that man might re- 
member the God of his being forever, and that not by blind 
chance do the good things of earth al)ound. Yet more, we did 
not walk into an uninterrupted paradise, lest we might forget 
the hand of oppression ; it was once more stretched out over us, 
till our fathers called again upon the God of all to witness the 
justice of their cause, and having sealed their faith with their 
blood, they left us free ! Mr. Philips sees this. He knows 
that justice is the only basis of lasting security— that liberty 
dies, when justice is lost. He feels the golden rule, do unto 
others as you would they should do unto you. He knows that 
his security consists in making others secure : and that when 
his neighbor falls under oppression or despotism, he must fall 
next ! He feels that when constitutional liberty is gone, libertij 
is gone ! That the arbitrary will of numbers is the most dam- 
nable of all despotisms ! He knows that the resolution of the 
last congress, annexing Texas, a foreign slave nation to us, 
was not only a criminal at'ack on the rights of man, but m the 
teeth of the American Constitution, which makes the senate, 
the representative of the states, the only power capable of ac- 
quiring or losing territory, through treaties with foreign nations. 



372 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

He is wise enough to know that a sufferance of a single des- 
potic wrong, is the loss of all rights ! He looks to Massachu- 
setts where she stood, and then again where she will stand, 
when a great unconstitutional slave despotism spreads in length- 
ening pall of crime and wo over a once free continent, and 
liberty be known no more ! When Massachusetts shall be 
dwarfed to a point, and Faneuil Hall be filled with slaves, and 
the eyes of bondmen look up upon Bunker Hill, and base bodies 
sink down into voiceless wo ! Is that man eloquent ? Yes ; 
there were no remnant of the God-like spirit in piteous nature, 
if he were not. He proudly raises his eyes to " Webster and 
Adams," and damns the traitor who would basely stoop from 
the field of freedom's battle, and cries "all is not lost!" Go 
then, thou old and scarred veteran, once more to the field of thy 
soul's love — the war for the right — and let thy death eclipse the 
glory of thy life ! Webster ! Now if indeed thou art the man 
of the age and of the world, we tell you, the world and the 
age, and all coming ages, call for such a man ! Defender of the 
Constitution ! speak now if thou art the Olympian, in the di- 
vine power of truth, liberty, and law. Let thy voice, in thunder 
tones, shake the continent from its sleep of half a century, and 
make the old Bastile of slavery crumble to its very foundations ! 
Look back to the dungeon — the scaffold — the battle-field : — the 
spirits of the great dead walk unavenged among us ! Hear ! 
"Don't give up the ship !" "Live or die, I am for the Decla- 
ration !" " Give me Hberty, or give me death ! " "In the name 
of the living God, I come ! " Millions of eyes from the unmea- 
sured abyss of the dread future, are turned to Massachusetts — 
to her God-like sons — well then let them " look at her and see 
where she stands ! " 



Prof. Thomas D. Mitchell. 

The lecture of this gentleman, published by the medical class 
of Transylvania is before us. The lecture is as good as might 
be expected upon so common-place a theme — "the reciprocal 
obligations of professors and pupils." We have heard Professor 
M. on other occasions, and deem him an able lecturer. We 
regret to see his allusion to the Louisville Institute : we know 



FOURIERISM. C 373 

how hard it is to bear reproach and detraction, (if such have 
been used,) yet commend what we do not always praclice, 
magnanimous forbearance. Prof. M. states the number of stu- 
dents at from 150 to 200; this is enough in all conscience! 
This number added to the 350 at Louisville, would make 550 
students of medicine now at ■public schools in our State ! We 
intend no reproach upon the profession when we say, they had 
better be running the plough, throwing the shuttle, or pushing 
the plane. We are selfish enough, however, to wish our 
schools prosperity. Of all producers of wealth, education is the 
cause of the greatest nett accumulation. A few talented men, 
without any raw material but brains, and a few books, may 
bring millions to a ciiy ; to say nothing of health, cultivation, 
and renown : and we say this, feeling that the medical school 
was the cause in part of the overthrow of our press. 

The people of the South may be proud and tyrannical, if you 
please, but not utterly contemptible ; they will not honor a man 
for mean subserviency, even to slavery ! The Lexington school 
we hope will flourish ; but the mob of the 18th has fixed a stain 
upon this city which all time cannot eradicate ! She may not 
feel it just now ; bnt it will rise up in the minds of the young 
and true-hearted, that here was plotted the foulest deed that the 
American sun has yet looked upon ! . . ^ 

" There's blood upon that dinted sword, 
A staiu its steel can never lose ! " 



LEXINGTON, FEBRUARY 4, 1848. 

Fourier As.sociation — toe Harbinger. 

We give place below to some strictures upon us, because of 
our article in the 18th No. upon Fourierism. We number 
among our warmest personal and political friends, some men 
and women holding the doctrine of "Association." The Har- 
binger has condescended to notice our efforts in the cause of 
liberty, and to award us a position far above our merits (al- 
though we feel that we deserve somewhat the sympathies of all 
true men); we shall therefore take censure with the same 



374 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

spirit that we do praise, being neither elated by one, nor de- 
pressed by the other. 

We are not learned in metaphysical disputation; and 
have no taste or time for the trial, and no ambition to triumph 
in speculative philanthropy. Seeing great and pressing evils 
tying across our path in life, we cannot from our organization 
go round them, and we would not if we could. We shall deem 
ourselves happy, when our lamp is extinguished, if it shall be 
said of us, there was one who dared to do right, at whatever 
cost of personal and spiritual care. We think we have fully 
proved to the world, or that very small portion of it to whom 
we are known, that we shall not sacrifice an honest and manly 
expression of our sentiments to friend or foe. It is far easier 
in life to cater to the crimes and delusions of men, than to incur 
their censures, by a faithful setting forth of the right and the 
(rue, as we see it. We do not profess to be icise but honest. 
If any other man, or set of men, shall be gifted with a broader 
insight into the nature of things, than we, — much more if by 
self-sacrifice they shall lead the way to truth and happiness^ 
which are the temple of the living God — none shall exceed us 
in profound admiration and reverence. 

We aspire not to the " profundity" of " philosophy," and have 
no reverence for the " ridiculous." If we are not " clear-sighted" 
and "qualified," we submit that "philanthropy" should forbear 
the reproach. As to matters of " faith" we are used to hold it 
" unphilosophical " to condemn for any faith. We were foolish 
enough to believe that men were responsible for not acting up 
to the faith or the conscience that is in them. If faith be a 
crime, then is many an honest man damned ! Can the word 
"infamous^' ^PP^y ^^ faith in any case whatever? For our 
part we are prepared to condemn neither Malthus nor Fourier. 

The truth is, we did not approach the subject of association 
with " levity." We gave our candid opinion of it with freedom, 
because of our sympathy for general humanity without the 
bounds of " Kentucky." It is the sick who need a physician \ 
if the wound is not to be prol^d, it is not necessary to call hmi. 
If association be founded upon the nature of man, our mistake 
or shallow ideas, will not retard its success, for we did not profess 
to " understand'''' it. If it be not founded on the nature of man, 
it were better that all should receive a timely warning, that 
they were entering on an unknown sea, full of whirlpools and 



FOURIERISM. 375 

breakers! If we had treated the subject with a "sneer," we 
should have found it easier, and have been sufficiently common 
place! We did not utter it, because we did not fcelit On 
the contrary, wherever we see an honest spirit striving for the 
removal of those thousand ills, which press upon humanity, he 
has our respect and sympathy. True philanthropy may cause 
the cold-hearted to mock, but is never ridiculous. The World's 
convention ! What is there in it to cause " levity ?"' The Har- 
binger cannot vindicate it from cachinnation ! Association is 
different ; it attempts to do : it is not mere words ! Heaven 
forbid that we should throw cold water upon any attempt to 
raise fallen man ! We say again, they may succeed ; we hope 
they may ; but yet we want faith. Brothers, be prepared on all 
hands ; let the good that ye do be your reward ; for hope unat- 
tained is an ashen apple to hungry lips ! 

Let us see. The associationists claim " social equality." 
Now, if sociability is founded upon the same principle as 
"friendship, which acknowledges equality wherever it meets 
with sympathies " — and it can be founded upon no other — and 
there is an admitted difference in " tastes," and consequently in 
sympathies^ how '• in the name of all the gods at once " is 
" social equality " possible ? " Equality of conditions," we both 
agree, is impossible ! " Equality of rights," is attainable ; for 
that we contend. The socialists overlook this possible., for the 
equality of sociality, which is impossible! The meaning of 
the Declaration of Independence is true. The word '• equal " 
was not the word which ought to have been used, because in 
one sense it is not true, and gives room for cavil. It is not pos- 
sible, perhaps, to find a single word to fill its place. The idea 
contended for is, that all men arc, or ought to be, allowed the 
free and untrammeled use of spirit and body, so far as is com- 
patible with the law of nature and of God. In other words, no 
man, or set of men, ought to put a disqualification on another, 
which God has not put upon him. That law which makes me 
a lord of England, is unequal, because whatever merit B has, 
who was born at the same time, he cannot be a lord ! That 
law which gives me the property of my father and thus gives 
me an advantage over B who is poor, makes our conditions 
unequal in fact. Yet it may still be just, and in accordance 
with the Declaration of 1776 ; because there is nothing in the 
laws why B might not have been equally wealthy. B's father 



376 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

was a spendthrift, and mine economical ! Does nature object 
to such a law? Never! We oppose slavery, not because it 
obstructs us in the race of life ; for it does not, seeing we had 
the vantage ground by birth ; but because it is at war with 
nature and the laws of nature's God. We leave it to unpreju- 
diced minds to say, who stands upon the true ground of reform, 
we, or the associationisls ? Our " Familism," by the laws of 
our state, if not Catholic, was so favored that we had " a higher 
place than our neighbors ;" but we scorned to use factitious 
advantages : we preferred to come down into the broad republi- 
can arena which Deity spreads out to the sons of men, and 
contend for honor, prosperity, and happiness. The arrow, if it 
were poisoned, which we trust it was not, falls harmless at our 
feet ! Our readers will see, that we embraced in our word " re- 
finement," not mere conventionalisms, but, in addition, natural 
organic sensibility, so that the criticism of our reviewer does not 
reach us. 

We say " the cook and washer-woman are," in one sense, 
" menials," but that no " stigma " rests upon them, rightly. One 
of the great evils of slavery is, that it heightens the base preju- 
dices, which exist in even free states, making all those employ- 
ments dishonorable, by association of ideas, in which slaves are 
employed. For our own part, we admit the " social equality " 
of washer-women and cooks, when they are of similar tastes 
and accomplishments with ourself : although the difference of 
employments would require some sacrifice of convenience in 
enjoying their company. The consequences would be, tliat 
unless there was a purer and nobler spirit, or a more lovely per- 
sonage, in the working woman, we should assort with the lassies 
nearest at hand. The worst deception in the world, is that 
wherewith we deceive ourselves. We are not creatures of pure 
reason or pure justice ; we are governed much by the imagina- 
tion. If it sometimes underrates one class, it also overrates 
another class. Many a man marries " the ideal " and goes out 
at the elbows, and with an empty bread-basket because of the 
" Divinity " of his wife. Whilst many another man marries 
" the cook or the washer-woman " and grows fat, seeing that he 
knows who is the father of the " little blessing " that squalls in 
the cradle ! 

With regard to the ultimate perfection of mankind and entire 
happiness we are skeptics ! Deity has laid down certain laws, 



ELIJAH HART. 377 

which makes our happiness but an ap2)ro.rimatio?i to bhss. 
The Christian rehgion teaches the same doctrine. Faith will 
not cure us of evil. The violation of natural laws brings woe, 
whether our intentions be, metaphysically speaking, good or 
bad ! We must be not only conscientious, but ivise. We re- 
gard virtue as another term for knowledge and conformity to 
the law of nature. The epitaph by Burns, sums up our faith 
in this respect : if we insert virtuous for " honest," which is 
limited in its meaning : 

- "Here lies a (virtuous) man, » # ♦ 
If there's another world, he lives in bliss, 
If there is none, he made the best of this." 

Of course we put virtue here in its largest sense, including 
an expansive conformity to all the laws of our moral, intellec- 
tual and physical existence. Nations will rise and fall, be 
happy, or miserable, in as far as they are wise and virtuous. 
We have no guaranty that the printing press will necessarily 
preserve and increase knowledge and virtue. This nation now 
is preaching democracy and liberty, and complacently extending 
one of the most damning despotisms the world has seen ! We 
cannot escape the awful retribution of this monstrous violation 
of all the laws of God and nature. It does not need a resolu- 
tion or special judgment of God to effect this : our hand is 
thrust into the fire, and surely it will be utterly destroyed unless 
we speedily withdraw it ! Heaven help us, if a sin-hating God 
shall bare his red riffht arm. 



LEXINGTON, WEDNESDAY, FEB. 11 



Elijah Hart. 

Oiu- correspondent talks plainly. We like that. There 
is some hope for a man, however wrong, if he be frank and 
honest. 

We have never, however, advocated the abolition of the death 
penalty, although some writers in the True American look that 
way. It is not plain that the abolition of the death penalty 



378 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

would increase crime, but we are not prepared now to make 
new issues. 

We are the advocates of universal suffrage. 

We are in favor of the abolition of slavery because it is the 
mother of "ignorance and corruption," first, to all the blacks, 
and next, of necessity, to most of the whites. The common 
school system has not succeeded in a single slave state ; and 
never will succeed in one of them. It is the interest of slave- 
holders to keep non-slaveholders ignorant, else slavery would be 
overthrown in a day. Abolish slavery, and you abolish the 
" school of revenge and bloodshed." 

We are more opposed to "amalgamation" than Mr. Hart; 
and because we are opposed to amalgamation we oppose slave- 
ry ; for while that exists, it goes on infinitely faster than in a 
state of freedom ! The danger is not in setting men free, but 
in holding them in slavery. Let any man look around him ; 
how few crimes are committed b}^ free blacks, in comparison 
with the slaves ! In the West Indies there were from six to 
eight blacks to one white ; here it is the reverse. Yet in the 
Islands, although the masters bitterly opposed emancipation, 
and the blacks regarded the boon of liberty as coming solely 
from the central government, yet not a single emeute or out- 
break has ever taken place ! 

Then let us hear no more of this silly cry of the danger of 
freedom. Love begets love, and justice begets justice. Will 
any man deny the proposition in terms? Then why beat the 
bush for a raw head and bloody bones to frighten women and 
children ? All that is wanting to make Kentucky free is the 
WILL. If justice be of God, its fruits must be peace, happiness, 
and eternal prosperity. 



LEXINGTON, WEDNESDAY, JAN. 21. 

Crow-Foot Sketches. 

Chestnut street, Philadelphia, is the sheep walk of the haut- 
ton, for man is gregarious, and so is a sheep ; man has wool on 
his head, so has a sheep ; a sheep has a leader, and the rest 



CROW-FOOT SKETCHES. 379 

follow ; man has a leader, and all the rest follow ; a sheep has 
horns — enough said ! 

When we were a school boy we used to put a drop of ink on 
a sheet of white paper, and then fold it down and press it ; the 
line of flection passing through the drop, strange and fantastic 
figures were the result. These we used to call crow-foot 
sketches. 

There are crow foot sketches in Chestnut; things human and 
inhuman ; such things as are described in the books ; and such 
things as are not described at all. 

We say nothing now of the men ; when they are once done 
for, there is no cure. Lord Chesterfield hoped that regard for 
the opposite sex might effect something, and put his son under 
the tutelage of " fine women ;" but it would not do. Man must be 
original and self-relying or nothing. Not so the women ; they 
look to us for their every help, and improve by precept. 

But, for the sights in Chestnut street : And first, we saw wo- 
men, thick and thin, fat and lean, high and low. angular, 
rectangular, and triangular. We saw a nose with a face to it, 
and a face without a nose; a neck without a head on it, then a 
head without a neck— a lard keg and the human face divine 
in awful and mysterious junction — as some ass said of Ole Bull 
and his fiddle, "it was hard to say where the fiddle ceased and 
the man began " — so of the keg and the face ! We saw old 
" gals," from one to three in a squad, lean, dry, and sallow, a 
drop of rain missing once the head, would never touch in its 
descent. Their eyes wore a fixed and lack-lustre cast ; and if 
by some chance they fell upon that " other part of mankind 
which is not a woman," they spoke in vmmistakable language, 

" Sir, you will be d d for this." Some had thin and wind 

blown hair, wiry, like a cataract of cork screws— some plaited, 
some crisped ; and then there was a lassie with yellow mane, 
wliich showered its voluminous folds in all directions, like the 
fiery beams of the autumn sun. Some wjiiefat — not plump; 
yes^ by Jove, fat~a fat woman has no soul ; immortality is 
swallowed up of mortality ; we tell you they will go to sleep, 
and a shower bath can't wake them ! We saw three women in 
a row ; they were of the same size, had the same step, all load- 
ed with cotton bales ; and they beckoned to the east, and then 
to the west. Did you ever see three cradlers abreast in a wheat 
field 1 Thev are all aii-fait at the stroke ; like soldiers, they 



380 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

keep time, and respond to the flam of the drnm sticks ! We 
saw dresses of all sorts and colors, one, two, and three stories 
high ; one of n)ud, one of brick, and one of stone. Out upon 
such horrid architecture ! If a woman is a ball, or a triangle, 
or a square, or any other geometrical figure, the more clothes 
she puts on, the more breaks in the outline, the more colors, the 
better ; for if she be a monster in foim, a clothes horse is the 
lovelier sight. But if she be a woman, of divine image, simpli- 
city — simplicity — simplicity is all. 

We saw some skins like old leather ; some chalky, and some 
laid down in brick-dust ; and indigo about the eyes. Take 
care there ! " Wolf in the camp ! " We leaned our arm 
against the column at Jones', and for an hour let our eyes fall 
with the freedom of a stranger, upon this stream of caricatures, 
till we felt like swearing by the mammoth cave, the wild crab- 
apple orchard, the racoon dog, the best rifle, the snapping tur- 
tle, and the half horse and half alligator, and the small touch 
of an earthquake, that there was not a pretty woman out of 
old Kaintuck, when we were of a sudden smoothed down like a 
frill under a hot iron ! We saw her coming at last ; she was 
half an inch above medium size, and would weigh more than 
she seemed — which a practised eye gathers from the momen- 
tun], as truly as from the scales— the movement cannot be imi- 
tated. There was the whole outline of the woman, with no 
breaks in the dress, neither in the edge nor color. The bonnet 
was of dark crimson velvet, with a red, graceful feather hug- 
ging it around unostentatiously ; a dress of a warm color, and 
elastic texture, closing at the round wrists with clasps, swelling 
with the shoulders, gently shrinking with the waist, widening 
once more, and then with the undulations of the walk closing 
in sympathetically with the loveliest feet and ankles, in saucy 
boots of the same hue of the dress — a scarf thrown over the 
shoulders, so as to form a pretext for bringing the well chisel- 
led hands to a clasp at the zone. It may be that a band of po- 
lished gold or brilliants shone through the intervals of the wrist 
bands ; and the all-pervading colored gloves, we know, conceal- 
ed the offerings of the happy lover. There were features, not 
classic, but passionate, and full of poetiy and soul ; the large 
and expressive mouth ; eyes large, wide apart, and wide awake, 
under seemingly sleepy lids ; rich auburn hair, so judiciously 
braided as to fill out to perfection of outline, a most beautiful 



CHRISTIAN INTELLIGENCER. ,. ; ; 3gi 

head. She seemed to walk, all intent on her own sweet 
thoughts, as if conscious of the inexhaustible treasures of her 
own being. With one glance she knocked the crow foot 
sketches into a cocked hat, and "Mrs. Peck's husband" was a 
dead man ! 



LEXINGTON, WEDNESDAY, FEB. 18. 
W. Z. T. AND THE Christian Intelligencer. 

There is no true-hearted man in our state, who is not proud 
in his secret thoughts, that there is one Kentuckian who stands 
up under all difficulties, and truly and boldly defends the liberty 
of the press and eternal justice. 

The time has not yet come when Evan Stevenson is to re- 
ceive his full reward. But come it must as sure as any thing 
noble yet remains in the hearts of men, or Deity watches over 
the things of His own creation. 

Mr. T. speaks in seeming coolness, and we will show him 
that we can do so too. 

Mr. T. says he lias been for some years past in " favor of 
gradual emancipation." Has he begun his system of gradual- 
ism ? When will he begin ? Has he liberated his own plaves? 
Has he freed any portion of them ? Has he fixed a time when 
all or any portion of them are to be free l If not, then we con- 
fess that we are a more ultra-abolitionist than he. Has he urged 
emancipation upon the state at large? Has he proposed his 
plan of gradualism 1 When does he advise its commencement? 
Is he prepared to vote out his views? If not, he is far less 
" r«.s7/" than we : he has a prudence that would make Falstaff 
himself shed tears of admiration ! 

Mr. T. says our abolitionism comes from the love of " black 
men," liis abolitionism from the love of the " white man." 
Where does Mr. T. get this information of our views, since he 
admits he does not read our paper? 

We are not a professed Christian as Mr. T. is: we do not 
read our Bible so much : perhaps Christ did die for " white men" 
only, not for the love of the blacks. The Mogul, the Malay, 



382 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

the Indian, perhaps ihey are not all children of the same 
Father— the God of all. That may be a good reason for his 
loving only white men. But we protest against his giving our 
motives as they do not exist. We go for the abolition of slavery, 
not because the slave is black or white — not because we love 
the black man best, for we do not love him as well, we confess 
we are full of prejudice, — but because it is just — because it is 
honest — and because honesty is the best policy. If this is ultra, 
truth is ultra, and we are ultra. 

Mr. T. thinks that sentiments similar to his were fast gaining 
preponderance in the state till our " ultraisms" caused a retro- 
grade movement in public sentiment. Now, if this be true, we 
ought to be a great favorite with the perpetualists : we deserve 
a statue. 

; If Mr. T. will read the history of British emancipation, he 
will find that the same song was sung in England : and Wil- 
berforce and Clarkson were ever reproached with causing " a 
retrograde movement." Yet emancipation came at last in spite 
of the efforts of the abolitionists to the contrary. So here in 
Kentucky, emancipation will come at last in spite of our ultra- 
isms, and Mr. T.'s gradualisms ! 

Public sentiment is " morbid," says Mr. T.; it is diseased. 
Well, then, it needs a physician : a diseased mind needs truth 
to cure it: for truth is the mind's only medicine. Now we call 
upon Mr. T. in the kindest spirit, to show wherein our doctrines 
want truth ; and if he does, we pledge ourselves to come over 
to it. Will he do as nmch ? 

We have " fretted off the bridle and thrown it aw^ay." We go 
free from the errors of habit — of education — of dogmatism : we 
seek after the right only, and having found it, we speak out, like 
a free born man what we think as we see it. We are of Jefferson's 
opinion, that •' error may be safely tolerated, if reason is left free 
to combat it." If we have gone into any excesses, we should be 
glad to have Mr. T. to point them out, and we promise reform. 
Yes, we are " rash and reckless" of the denunciations of the 
worshippers of error and crime. We return blow for blow : we 
send back bitter words against calumny ; but under the holy 
influences of right and kindness, we are as tame as the shorn 
lamb. So that brother T. may come it over us loith as much 
effect as he did over brother Evans — and no more. 



C. M. CLAY'S APPEAL.— NO. V. 383 

The Rochester American, 

Severely criticises our reply to the Albany invitation. As to 
all the bad taste of the thing, we plead guilty. When we sit 
as a stern critic upon our own composition, we are often ready 
to go as far as the farthest in denunciation of our style. It is 
very easy, at any rate, for a man with his feet upon the fender, 
or on somebody's writing table, to talk very philosophically 
about the proper means of overthrowing a despotism which the 
men of '76, great as they were, dared not attack ! 

No one despises mere words more than we do ; but unhap- 
pily we liave nothing else to use. The Rochester paper will 
hardly advise us to take up a meat axe and cut away at the 
American people — will it ? Well, if we have nothing but 
words, it seems to us right, that we should array them into all 
sorts of single and double files, platoons, and hollow squares, 
making as " big a show " as the nature of the case will allow ! 
What says the American ? 

Our 7Uodesty would not originally have allowed us to men- 
tion ourselves in the day-time with Washington ; but since the 
American ventures the comparison, let him remember, that 
Wasliington lived only to put hiniself at the head of forces 
already arrayed — to fall in wnth a public sentiment already 
made. The sword was the thing he was called to use, not 
words ! Now as to dying, we are as fond of life as any man ; 
we know how to enjoy it ; and as long as we can avoid the 
grim monster, without incurring greater evils, we shall not be 
slow to give him the slip ! But yet, with the American's per- 
mission, we think that we shall not be driven from our defence 
of the right to use words^ great., huge swelling words., if it please 
us, to avoid even the risk of a physical stoppage of the pipe of 
enunciation. 

So much for matters of taste ! 

As to the denial of our proposition, that " if they are not 
freemen, who tamely submit to the loss of one right, then are 
the American people slaves," we stand prepared to defend it by 
all sorts of speech ; the premise, the copula, and the conclusion ; 
by all sorts of rhetoric, logic, and syllogisms. Nay, if the Ame- 
rican prefer it, we will use something more than words : we 
will maintain it with fists, the sbelalah, the small sword, the 



384 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. ' 

single stick, the big sword, and double sticks, the guard and the 
prenez garde ; and if its editor will only come on to Kentucky, 
on that subject, he shall have a " free fight !" 

The patriots of '76 did not deem the tax on tea a great sum 
to pay, to be sure ; but then the right to tax them by parlia- 
ment, without their being represented, necessarily involved the 
right to " tax them in all cases whatever." If they had tamely 
submitted to the loss of this right, would they not have been 
slaves ? Wilkes and the British people deemed it their right to 
discuss publicly, in word and in print, the measures and men 
of government : and in this contest, sustained themselves 
against the combined power of kings, lords, and commons. 
Well, had he and the British people tamely submitted to the 
loss of this one right, would they not have been slaves ? 

The despotism of Charles, perhaps, did not touch Sidney, and 
Hampden, and Russell, jjersonalli/ ; but when they saw a great 
constitutional and legal principle, day after day violated, they 
deemed that he who tamely submitted to the loss of one great 
right — ^for the king even was bound by the constitution — was 
not a freeman ! If the British nation had not aroused itself 
and vindicated the right, would they not have been slaves? 

It seems to us, that the " American " confounds private for- 
bearance with public servility. If a man steals our purse, we 
may tamely submit to it, and yet be free. Why ? Because we 
may at any time vindicate our right, or guard against its loss. 
But if a people allow a despot to lay unjust tribute upon them, 
they are slaves, because they both lose the ivill and the poiver 
of self-vindication ! The American people see the slaveholders 
violate the Constitution, openly and palpably : they allow them 
to introduce a slave state into the Union : they not only show 
the spirit of slaves, base submission to a monstrous and radical 
wrong — but they place themselves in a position less capable of 
resisting than ever ! Wherein then are they different from the 
meanest African ? You may say that there is a latent power 
which they can exercise some of these, times — so may say the 
slave^ — yet nevertheless they are slaves. The constitution of 
Kentucky gives us the right '• fieely to write or speak on all 
subjects whatever," being responsible, of course, for its abuse, to 
the laws, and a jury of our peers. But of this right we are 
forcibly stript by the slaveholders : and are we not then a slave ? 
They have taken our property with impunity, and we have no 



THE ANTI-SLAVERY REPORTER. 335 

redress : are we not a slave? We hold our life at their good 
will and pleasure, without fear of law and retribution on them 
for taking it away : are we not then a slave ? And if we cry 
out then not exactly to suit the nervous sensibility of the Roch- 
ester American — it censures ! It does not see the good taste of 
making such a hellabaloo ! 

The signers of the Declaration of Independence had the bad 
taste to pledge " tlieir lives." Two of the most eloquent 
speakers of the age had the bad taste to say — one: "survive 
or perish — live or die ;" the other — " give me liberty or give me 
death." The American's memory is as blunt as its logic ! Of 
course all these men were cowards ! 

It would no doubt be more agreeable to the quiet sensibilities 
of Messrs. Webb, Mann, and ourself. to look a Frenchman and 
an Englishman in the face, and lay it on some poor foxy-headed 
African, as being the slave. Yet the truth shall be told, wince 
who may. However much we may cloak ourselves in the huge 
phrase of dignified manhood, we are the slaves ! and more 
shame to us, we were once free ! - • 



The Anti-Slavery Reporter, 

Tliiuks our remarks in New York, concerning the Liberty 
party, ungenerous. We do not denounce the motives of the 
Libeity party, on the contrary, we commend them. We do not 
say of them that no enlightened and consistent abolitionist can 
approve theii' plan, as the Reporter says of ours. We think 
we are right ; it speaks as if it knerv it was right ; who is most 
generous 7 

There are many reasons why black suffrage should be advo- 
cated in New York, yet refused here. The blacks in New York 
are free , in Kentucky they are slaves. The blacks in New 
York are generally educated; in Kentucky they are not. The 
blacks in New York are few ; in Kentucky many. Besides, we 
may all admit that the cat ought to be belled : but who is able , 
to bell her '] Perhaps the Reporter can pull out Leviathan with 
a hook ? We cannot ! We shall try to maintain our indepen- 
dence and impartiality ; we shall be forced into controversy > 
25 



386 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

with no party, unless they trample upon the great principles of 
constitutional liberty and justice. We have defended the 
Liberty party, when it was worth our head to dare it : we shall 
not now be turned aside by unkind words, from honoring those 
who have borne nmch calumny for conscience's sake. We 
spoke of the Liberty party, because of their greater number, and 
consequent importance, not as being less patriotic than the 
Garrisonians. But enough of this, whilst the foe is in the 
field. 



The Baltimore Saturday Visitor, and the Liberty 
OF THE Press. 

The battle rages apace : and again and again, Americans, 
you hear and must as surely decide, " under which King Bezo- 
nian, speak or die " — liberty or slavery ? Those who have read 
Mr. Snodgrass's journal, will bear unqualified testimony to its 
dove-like spirit and patient Christian tone, yet this does not 
avail, and Lynx-eyed despotism has found out that he is in ear- 
nest^ and means to act^ and he too is marked for ruin. 

Mark the fiend-like language of Clagett's resolution, " hest to 
convict him.'''' Here the legislature sits as judge and jury, and 
the liberty of a citizen is proposed to be taken away without a 
hearing ! And this is a free land, is it ? This is the mob spirit 
of Kentucky — the spirit of lynch-law — the spirit of slavery. 
How long, sons of '76 — children of Washington and Lafayette 
— shall we crouch under the despotism of three hundred and 
fifty thousand slaveholders ? 



Come, ye craven millions, why sit ye in stolid, 
Gaze till " they have bound us hand and foot ? " 
" Men at sometimes are masters of their fates, 
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars 
But in ourselves, that we are underlings. 
Brutus and Caesar: What should be in that Caesar, 
Why should that name be sounded more than yours? 
Write them together, yours is as fair a name ; 
Soimd them, it doth become the mouth as well ; 
Weigh them, it is as heavy ; conjure them, 
Brutus will start a spirit soon as Ctesar. 



THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 387 

Now, in the name of all the Gods, at once. 
Upon what meat doth this our C aesar feed, 
That he is grown so great ? Age thou art shamed, 
Rome thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods !" 

" I cannot tell what you and other men 
Think of this life ; but for my single self 
I had as lief not be, as to be 
In awe of such a thing as myself, 
I was bom as free as Cajsar."' 



Such is the language of a British subject. We call ourselves 
freemen — we value our own constitution — we enact our own 
laws — yet a few men, elevated fiom the common mass only by 
trampling under foot all the principles which republics hold as 
sacred, come upon us at their own good will and pleasure, and 
rob us of our property — imprison our persons, and destroy our 
lives ! Will not some Cromwell — some Caesar — some Nicholas, 
come and purge us of this living lie— this foul hypocrisy — this 
base pollution of all that is glorious and manly ? 

*****" Knew I an hundred men 

Despairing, but not palsied by despair, 

This arm should shake the kingdoms of the world." 

Is this the language of a British subject ? And do we sit 
here with eighteen milhons of men, tamely bowing our heads 
to the tender mercies of relentless tyrants, and yet dare look 
men in the face and call ourselves /ree ? 

" Awake, (not Greece, she is awake !) 
Awake my spirit, think through whom 

Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake, 
And then strike home." 

Is this the language of a British subject ? Americans from 
what blood do you track your parent lake ? Go destroy the 
memorials of the gallant dead, which shame us in our apostacy, 
and make us more miserable by contrast, in this well of our in- 
famy ! 

" Not thirty tyrants now enforce the chain. 

But every carle can lord it o'er thy land ; 

Nor rise thy sons, but idly rail in vain. 

Trembling beneath the scourge of Turkish band,. 

From birth to death enslaved ; iu word, in deed unmanned." 



388- THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

LEXINGTON, WEDNESDAY, FEB. 25. 

Who is Guilty? 

The people will remember that there are several correspon- 
dents for this paper, one of whom has thought proper to de- 
nounce slave traders with great bitterness. For our part, we 
entirely dissent from this ; we cannot see for our life, how they 
are more guilty than those who, by their vote, and the musket, 
and the jmlpit, make it legal ! Is the principal worse in the 
eye of reason, or the common law, than the aider and abettor ? 
Not at all. So we see no impropriety in catching slaves with 
dogs, if it be just to catch them at all ! We hate cant and 
hypocrisy ! We love plain, outspoken villany more : it is safer 
and less subversive of the idea that man is born of God, and 
not inevitably destined for the devil ! 



Abbott Lawrence's Letters to Wm. C. Rives. 

We have read these two letters with great care. The re- 
putation of Mr. Lawrence as a clear-headed business man, en- 
titles his opinions to at least a candid consideration, whilst 
his courtesy and liberality as a gentleman, demand of us terms 
of delicate respect. It is not the province of this journal to 
discuss topics of mere economical interests, upon which the two 
great parties of this nation are divided ; we therefore avoid an 
analysis of Mr. Lawrence's theory of a tariff and " reciprocity 
treaties." Suffice it to say, that we do not dissent from him in 
a single position taken. We are honestly of opinion that a 
tariff of discriminating duties, for the purpose of sustaining and 
creating home manufactures, is equally beneficial to capital and 
to labor, which is the main point ; well paid labor being the 
first element of national and individual progress. By creating 
new places for work, you do not diminish the old; and it seems 
to us that a man who places two manufactories where only 
one existed before, is equally entitled to the honor of benefactor 



A. LAWRENCE'S LETTER. 389 

of the race, as "he who causes two blades of grass to grow 
where there was but one before.'' 

It is plain, as Mr. L. says, that Great Britain does all her 
free trade in her literature, not in her halls of legislation. 
Far less can it be said of other nations, that they are for free 
trade ; for they seem rather to be verging towards a more re- 
strictive system. But even were it otherwise, we deny that it is 
our policy to go for free trade. We take the broad ground, 
that if every nation in the world were to abolish taritfs, we 
should hold on. We say that all commerce consisting in ex- 
changes between nations, of other than exotic things, is a loss 
to one or both. Any marine, other than a productive one, by 
fisheries, &c., is a dead loss to mankind, to the whole amount 
of all the ships and outfits, the food and clothing of the men, 
and the labor. The more of man's wants that can be sup- 
plied in his own home, and nation, the better for him and the 
better for mankind. 

Let us descend from theory to practice. New England has 
a poor soil ; but she has learning, skill, and water power. It 
is her interest, then, to make every thing she wants within 
her own borders, according to the general theory. Poor as 
her soil is, it is her interest to till it to the best advantage, 
rather than let it lie waste, relying for exchange of cloths for 
Western provisions. But her population rises to the point of 
subsistence, where her soil ceases to afford food for her people ; 
what then ? They must emigrate, starve, or manufacture, and 
by an exchange of those manufactured articles, get food. Here 
our theory is fully sustained. Kentucky sends her beef and 
pork there, and gets manufactured goods in exchange. New 
England does well ; she pursiies general principles and gets 
rich. But how is it withi^entucky ? She, by violating general 
principles, is kept, with all her advantages of soil, compara- 
tively poor; because she bears the expense of all the exchange. 
Our hats, &c., cost us more than the farmers of New England, 
and our beef sells for less. A hat in Boston costs the farmer 
four or five dollars ; us six or ten. The Boston and New York 
farmers get five or six cents for their pound of beef; that pays 
for the hats. The Kentuckian gets but three cents for his 
pound of beef, at New York or Boston, where we now drive, it 
costing him three cents carriage ! These are facts ! Now, by 
a division of labor, in consequence of home manufactures, on 



390 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

as good a farm, with the same labor, the Massachusetts man 
enjoys twice the amount of the physical wants as the Ken- 
tuckian ; for every want supplied is a positive pleasure. 

Mr. L. tells us to educate our children and put wheels on 
our water courses, and then we will fare as well as Massachu- 
setts. True ; but not the whole truth. We would fare better, 
just as much better as our land is richer than the land of Mas- 
sachusetts. But why did not Abbott Lawrence tell us that 
slaves were not, and could not become equal to Massachusetts 
freemen ? and of course, education never would become general, 
and wheels never be put upon our water courses? Mr. Law-, 
rence does not fear competition in manufactures from us. Of 
course not ; for he knows just as well as we do, that slaves 
would not manufacture if they could ; and could not if they 
would ! 

No ; Mr. Lawrence knows, and W. C. Rives knows, and we 
know, that any slave state is just now by slavery what he pre- 
dicts America would be by the loss of the tariff ! We are ]jra- 
vincial ; an agricultural people, without division of labor, 
and without capital, and must ever remain so through all time, 
while slavery lasts. And we now, before all America — since 
Mr. Lawrence has presumed to instruct the South — put the 
question to him, and demand of him as a gentleman and an 
honest man, if our position is not true ? and, if it is, that he 
say — yes ! 

Mr. Lawrence may not be of that number, but we know that 
many Northern capitalists are, who think that slavery is a be- 
nefit to them, though a curse to us ! 

We attempted briefly in our New York speech to meet that 
opinion. We say, in all confidence, that the ground then taken 
by us is true and incontrovertible. What is the continent, 
with all its soil and minerals, without labor ? What sort of 
customers are the Indians to New York and Boston ? Slavery 
is wearing out the soil of the South ; " her millions are inert, 
tame Indians !" Give us free labor and that we will manufacture 
much more than now, is true ; but still we will be, in the main, 
an agricultural people, because we have the soil and the cli- 
mate. We will have, by the energy and intelligence of free la- 
bor, quadruple what we have now^, to exchange for norihern 
manufactures. 

The products of labor are in a geometrical, not a simple 



A. LAWRENCE'S LETTER. 391 

ratio to its increased energy, for, after the body is clothed and 
fed, all the rest is clear gain. Thus, A and B make five hats 
a day, or two bushels of wheat — enough to clothe and feed 
them in the rudest style — they have nothing to exchange for 
luxuries. C and D make ten hats, or four bushels of wheat 
per day ; they have as much to expend in luxuries as A and B 
had to expend in necessaries ; but E and F, by skill and edu- 
cation, and superior energy and mechanism applied to arts and 
manufactures, make fifteen hats, or six bushels of wheat a day. 
Now, C and D do not enjoy simply double of A and B ; by lay- 
ing up their surplus they may grow a million times more 
wealthy, instead of just twice as wealthy, although making but 
just twice as much per day ! E and F, by making a third 
more than C and D, are not just in that proportion better citi- 
zens, in an economical point of view, than C and D, for they 
are consuming no more than C and D, whilst they are making 
a third more ! Practically they would be as far ahead, in the 
long run, of C and D, as C and D were of A and B ! We re- 
peat then, that the accumulations of wealth are not in a sim- 
ple, but in a geometrical ratio to the talent and energy of the 
laborer ; and this difference is greater than any man can ima- 
gine or calculate. Its results, however, break upon us with 
astounding reality when we see Massachusetts, a mere speck 
on the map of the Union, making in 1845 ninety millions of dol- 
lars worth of manufactures, whilst the whole cotton crop 
amounted to several millions less. 

Massachusetts has seven hundred miles of railroad, more, by 
some hundreds, than all the railroads south of Mason and 
Dixon's line ! 

But we have said enough. We regretted to see Mr. Law- 
rence yielding to the Texas usurpation with a facility unworthy 
the noble name he bears. He may be a shrewd merchant and 
manufacturer, and see "new markets" opened up in Texas for 
New England enterprise. But justice and lasting prosperity go 
in the long run together ; reason proves it — history proves it, 
the Bible proves it— the undying promptings of the immortal 
soul prove it. We tell Mr. Lawrence, in all humility and reci- 
procal kindness, that he is receiving from the South the shut 
of Nessus ; such prosperity is the fruit of crime, and madness, 
pain, and despair follow in its train ! When he sees Mr. Rives, 



392 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

let him whisper into his ear one word — worth a thousand of his 
letters, able as they are — '■'•Make Virginia free ! " 



Crow-Foot Sketches. 

Philadelpliia is complained of as being too rectangular ; and 
no doubt, so far as mere beauty is concerned, the objection is 
good. It is rarely that cities like St. Petersburgh are created ; 
they may be rather said to grow, controled on all sides by ob- 
structions without, and certain conflicting laws within. It is of 
no use to talk then of parallel right-lined streets ; the thing is 
done ; but by all that is sacred in the sublime and beautiful, 
why are immense blocks of buildings put up as much alike as 
two peas, or right and left eyes ? Is there no individuality in 
the Q,uaker city? Does everybody copy the Smith — the wealthy, 
or the Brown — the traveller abroad ? Is there no genius, no 
personality in these people ? Is there no variety in stone, in 
brick, in paint, in outline ? If not for the sake of violating all 
nature's laws, what is it for? If for nothing else than to save 
time, that a man might know his own, w'ould not some slight 
mark be advisable ? Mr. Brown turns the knob and walks right 
into Mrs. Smith's, and before she can say, " who's that ? " has 
his arms around her : " Oh dear ! " cries Mrs. Smith, with a voice 
liked crushed sand, or squeaking hinges. " I beg ten thousand 
pardons," cries Mi". Brown, disentranced by these unusual notes 
• — " thought it was Mrs. Brown — wrong door I see." We once 
heard of a case of a man's walking up three pair of stairs, shut- 
ting the door, and attempting to push his head into a night cap 
already filled with a most lovely face and dewy hps — of course 
he had mistaken the house ! 

Philadelphia has many small parks which atone somewhat 
for this tameness of structure. The old United States Bank 
and the Mint are her principal public structures ; they are of a 
classic model, but not very imposing. The Girard College is in 
the suburbs, I presume, the most beautiful specimen of art in 
America. It is of the Grecian order after the manner of the 
Parthenon. It is of hewn granite, with a colonnade of Corin- 
thian columns all round, eleven on each side, and six on each 
of the gables. 



CROW-FOOT SKETCHES. 393 

The building is nearly complete, with marble floors, arched 
ceilings, winding arched stairs of stone, and covered with 
granite tiles. Thus making the building entirely of stone, and 
of course fire proof. The building will be entered at the gables 
over flights of steps, passing into a vestibule or court lighted from 
the roof ; with winding stairs leading to the several stories ; you 
can enter any of the twelve principal rooms, without passing 
through one to the other. The building is heated with air flues 
from a single stove in the basement ; seems gloomy within ; of 
course from its model better suited to inspire awe and a sense 
of mystery and sublimity, than well arranged with light and 
air, for school rooms. The whole, however, viewed from with- 
out, is the most lovely and perfect building we ever saw, the eye 
seems never satisfied with gazing, and its beautiful harmony of 
proportion wins upon the spirit the more it is studied. Certainly 
we know but one edifice which surpasses it in exquisite grace 
and symmetry of outline, and that is the work of which Burns 
speaks, as nature's " first," and made by no " prentice hand "^ — • 
and about her there are some curves which the volutes of the 
Corinthian capitals do not begin to rival, from which Burke 
drew his idea of " the line of Beauty." 

The main edifice is flanked on both sides by two regular 
buildings of granite plain parallelograms intended for dormito- 
ries, all fire proof The whole are to be surrounded by highly 
ornamented landscape gardens. 

Since New York has made her Croton water works, Phila- 
delphia says little of Fairmont : and Basil Hall might travel 
the country in some complacency of spirit, without having his 
self-love injured by "Pray, i\Ir. Hall, have you seen the water 
works ? " 

Fairmont is a beautiful place, and worth a visit yet. 

The Mint is remarkable for the simplicity, and finish, and 
perfection of its engine and machinery : and its collection of 
ancient and modern coins is truly interesting. 

Peale's Museum in this city is a good one, now removed to 
the old Masonic Hall, on Chestnut street, and deserves to be sus- 
tained for its own merits, as vv'ell as on account of its gentle- 
manly and spirited proprietor. 

It is well known that the Academy of Fine Arts in Philadel- 
phia was lately burnt, and most of its marbles entirely destroyed. 
I remember to have visited it in 1840, and I felt on revisiting it 



394 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

like returning to the tomb of some lost friend, finding it in 
ruins, and covered with grass and coarse weeds, and its inscrip- 
tions gone ! 

It was the best collection in America. But as the women 
have taken it in hand, we trust it will soon surpass its original 
excellence ; for although there are many statues lost for ever, 
there is genius enough now in existence to equal them. I 
reverence the olden time only for its excellence, not for its age. 

There is still a beautiful marble copy of the original Venus 
di Medicis ; and as this celebrated statue has won the unmixed 
admiration of ages. I studied it somewhat with a view to see if 
possible what there was in it peculiar. 

There is no question but that the Caucasian, or Pelasgian, 
race of men is the first in mental and physical development. 
The climate of Greece was favorable to luxurious and graceful 
development: the people were not over-worked, and yet exercised 
sufficiently for health and free and equal distribution of muscle. 
The public amusements, and the universal habits of the Grecian 
people, and above all their natural and free clothing, the loose 
zone and sandal, instead of the corset and spring-soled pinching 
shoe — all favored physical beauty. 

The Greek artist had the advantage, from the habits of the 
people, of studying the best models of the best race : and the 
consequences are " the Venus." 

The head of this statue, like that of all the statues of the 
ancients where mere beauty, or the sensual is impersonated, is 
rather small and oval ; the forehead is shaped in harmony with 
the chin to produce the full effects of an oval face: the intel- 
lectual development of the head is sacrificed to the beautiful 
and sensual, in contradistinction to the beautiful in sentiment 
and intellect. In male figures, the opposite course is pursued ; 
and in the Minerva the same masculine style of head is kept up. 

The reader must not suppose me a phrenologist; I think 
nothing yet has been produced to entitle phrenology to the title 
of science. I believe the brain acts as a whole ; still certain 
forms of head to a practised eye indicate intellectual and moral 
differeni^es, with a force amounting, in nine cases out of ten, to 
a conviction in the mind of the beholder ; though those con- 
victions may not always be truths. I do not contend that an 
intellectual head and face are necessarily wanting in beauty- 
such beauty as creates love. A merely beautiful woman, with 



CROW-FOOT SKETCHES. 395 

no great intellect, generally knows her true strength, and no 
divided thoughts interrupt the sensation produced on our sex. 
A woman of beauty, and intellect, and sentiment, may divert 
us a long time without inflaming us ; a nice sense of propriety 
or pride may induce her to spare us ; but when she does choose 
to play the lover, and is fairly taken herself, she has far more 
power than your 77iere beauty. So that in looking on the Venus, 
I venture to say that the head and face do not equal our living 
ideal of the beautiful ; yet in statuary where quiescent matter 
is without the play of feature, which reveals the soul, it is per- 
haps the true in loveliness. The remainder of this statue is 
faultless in our eyes. The roundness of the shoulders is not to 
us a defect : it is graceful, and indicates physical vigor. 1 have 
seen statues which were more impressive at first glance, more 
rich in animal fulness and budding vitality, yet the modest 
swell and tapering limbs here more interest the mind, and take 
at last a stronger hold upon the soul. 

The statue, all know, is nude, and entirely made after the 
manner of the ancients ; the head is turned aside, as if startled 
by an intruder ; and both hands are instinctively brought to 
shield, where " concealing is most revealing ; " and the person 
slightly shrinking, gives that show of modesty which above all 
things so moves our sex. 

On the whole, the artist must have been a man of eminent 
genius of course ; and that he studied long and well, and availed 
himself of all nature's secret stores, is proven by the test of time 
and the verdict of mankind. 

It would be well if some of our modern women could occa- 
sionally see this statue to find where a woman's waist, ought to 
be ; and learn that a wasp, though the very acme of contrasts, 
is not the most beautiful thing in nature, by a hustle full. 

There were many paintings, etc., in the Rotunda, the part left 
unburnt, worthy of notice, had we time and space. The 
colossal group in the centre of the room seemed to have much 
merit ; and one of the female figures, on the right hand, pros- 
Irate on the groimd with the face hid on her arm, seemed full 
of grace and of unequalled attitude. ? 

Peale's Gallery, on Chestnut street, has nothing that struck 
me as worthy of special remark, unless it b6 the horse and rider 
attacked by an anaconda. 

I saw nothing in the city that more interested me than the 



396 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

manufactories. I was particularly pleased with Lovering &, Co.'s 
sugar refinery, and Coffin &, Co.'s soap and candle factory. 

The sugar refinery is a fine comment upon the system of 
slave labor. The sugar is carried to Philadelphia and refined, 
and then returned once more to New Orleans for sale and home 
and foreign consumption. The reason ! Slaves are not taught 
chemistry nor mechanics, and ccm't do the work : the whites, 
if learned enough, won't. 

Philadelphia is said to be the first manufacturing city in the 
Union ; and in spite of her inland position is steadily and 
securely advancing in wealth and population. Her charitable 
institutions are highly creditable to her. Her alms house, peni- 
tentiary, lunatic asylum, etc., are worthy of the age, and deserve 
farther notice. 



LEXINGTON, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4. 

Sabbath Convention. 

This convention met in Frankfort, Kentucky, on February 
10th, 1846, composed of two hundred and three delegates, 
including ministers, laymen, and moralists. Governor Owsley 
was chosen President, and Col. Wm. Rodes, William Richardson, 
Rev. Jacob Creath, David Thornton, and Major Samuel McCown, 
were made Vice Presidents ; and Rev. Thomas S. Malcolm, 
and Hon. Benj. Monroe, Secretaries. It was composed of Chris- 
tians and others, without reference to sect or party. Spirited 
resolutions were passed, and an impressive address sent out to 
the people of Kentucky. 

This convention meets the cordial approbation of every good 
and reflecting mind. Its influence will be felt in causing the 
Sabbath to be observed. The necessity -of resting one day in 
seven — in pausing in the mad vortex of business and pleasure, 
and reflecting upon man's duties to man and to God — in elevating 
the affections and the aspirations of the heart, and purifying 
the soul, has not only been commanded in the Bible, but has 
met the individual approbation of the wise in all ages. We are 



THE SEDITION LAW. ' 397 

opposed io formal religion, or formal morality ; yet we gladly 
wish every aid to fix our thoughts and assist reflection. We 
believe the better part of our nature, under fair play, will ever 
triumph ; and our aspirations for the glory and happiness of all 
men are incessant. 



The Sedition Law. 

It will be seen from the act of the Kentucky legislature, in 
to-day's paper, that the sedition law has dv.'indled down into a 
very harmless affair. After the infamous and cowardly mob of 
tlie 18th, and the re-appearance of the True American, the poor 
mobbites, who have become the laughing stock of the very boys 
in the streets, some of them having been even hung in effigy, 
seeing that they had taken oft' inert types in the absence of the 
legal owner, appropriating them to their own use, whilst the 
living editor was walking about among them — consoled them- 
selves by nodding their heads and saying, "never mind, we'll 
have him in the penitentiary yet." Sure enough, when the le- 
gislature met, a bill was brought in, utterly destroying the liberty 
of the press, and making the circulation of the Bible, and the 
Declaration of Independence, by being " calculated to excite 
slaves to insubordination !" — penal ! 

The Tobacco Interest in the State were the foremost in this 
matter, with some honorable exceptions. But failing to play 
the tyrant over their own citizens by disregarding every princi- 
ple of reason, justice, the common law, the constitution, and 
common sense, in their usual spirit of kicking the breeches of 
Northern men, they extended their laws over the Free States. 
Of course when it came to the lower house this Quixotic law 
was cut up— "gutted," as some of the members vaunted. The 
nation will no doubt be surprised to find the more numerous 
body of the Legislature, composed mostly of young men, sitting 
as censors, and correcting tlie follies of grave senators ! But 
they must remember, that the Senate is of the old dynasty, and 
knows not of the young Giant Liberty, which is arousing itself 
among the lieople of the present generation. We had the plea- 
sure of looking in upon the House, and hearing many members 
priding themselves that the monster " was gutted — made its 



398 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

dying effort — never to rally again." And so we venture to say 
it will be for ever. In the meantime, we ask the jive hundred 
thousand white non-slaveholders to maka those tools of slave- 
holders, who were willing to sell our liberties for gold, 7neet 
the doom of traitors ! and whenever they present themselves at 
the -polls for office, let us see if we can^t find some other men 
than they, to represent freemen. For we now, since the Ken- 
tucky legislature has refused to stand by the usurpation of the 
18th of August, giving an earnest that the laws will be vindi- 
cated, are proud to say, that Kentucky is yet free, to us the 
whites, at least. God speed the time when not a slave of any 
color shall desecrate her lovely soil and glorious name ! 

The liberty of the press was most ably sustained by the 
mountains where few slaves exist. We are glad of this, for it 
proves that the true issue begins to be understood, and that we, 
the non-slaveliolders of this State, are destined to overthrow 
slavery. We have the poioer ; when we understand each other, 
will we use it. The legislature having very justly passed full laws 
to punish all the abuses of tlie press and the exciting slaves to 
insurrection, we suppose we shall have no more Lynchers using 
the plea of necessity for their cowardly plots of assassination ! 



Correction^ — ^T. F. Marshall. 

A report has been going the rounds of the papers to the effect, 
that we had shot Mr. Marshall in a duel. Our friends are 
aware, whilst we are ever ready to defend our legal and natural 
rights, by all the power that God has given us, that we have 
abandoned that bloody child of barbarism and Slavery, the 
duel. We trust that we are as magnanimous over a fallen foe, 
as we are ready to resist a powerful one : and Mr. Marshall's 
misfortunes have stripped us of what resentment we felt that 
we had a right to indulge towards him, for his unrelenting per- 
secution of us in our hour of prostration and weakness. 

And were it otherwise, feeling omselves deeply wronged, we 
had but to sit still as we were compelled to, and see those awful 
and startling denunciations of Scripture, " Vengeance is mine 
and I will repay," and such like phrases, liter alhj fulfilled ! 

Not one year has passed since the mob of (he 18th, and yet 



A NUISANCE ABATED. 399 

we have lived to see some of its most prominent advocates 
drinking tiie bitter cup which they would have thrust upon us. 
Some have been pubhcly disgraced ; some have suffered the 
loss of friends and family ; some have been reduced to poverty ; 
some have gone to that bourne whence no traveller returns ; and 
some are now walking about among men, in the full tide of 
reason and strength, with the horrid image of inevitable death 
before their eyes, with haggard countenances, showing their 
consciences are bloody with the crime of proposed murder ! — 
living over the four days and more, which they inflicted on a 
supposed dying man ! However much we attempt to dispel the 
idea of a Special Providence^ when men see these things, reflec- 
tion will seize on the mind — remorse upon the soul. And we 
venture to say, that not one of all those triumphant thousands, 
who, in August perpetrated the foulest crime known among 
men, will pass away, without bitterly regretting that day ; for, 
as we foretold, it shall " be accursed." And when any of 
those evils arise, to which all men are liable in the course of 
nature, thcT/ shall then rememhcr, and ice shall be avenged! 



LEXINGTON, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11. 

Extraordinary Excitement in Harrodsburg, and in 
THE County of Mercer, Kentucky. — The Slaveoc- 
racy Checkmated — A "Nuisance" abated!* 

" We stop the press" to give our readers an account of a tre- 
mendous excitement among the people of Harrodsburg and 
Mercer county, Kentucky. 

For some time past, J. A. G., Esq., a wealthy slaveholder, 
living three miles from the town of Harrodsburg, had evinced 
a most aristocratical anti-equality, anti-republican bearing. 
There were unmistakeable signs, for several months past, of 
deep indignation among the people, till at length an overt act 
on Mr. G.'s part precipitated matters; as it was plain that Mr. 
G. was a madman and fanatic, stirring up one class against 



The style of the Kentucky Press after the 



18th of August. 



400 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

another to the danger of all social harmony and the lives of the 
citizens of Mercer. 

On the night of Mr. G.'s daughter, a very accom- 
plished and fashionable woman, was married to Mr. , 

and the wedding was celebrated at the father's house, in the 
presence of a very select company. It was soon ascertained that 
the students of Bacon College,* and divers other jyeople of Mer- 
cer were utterly slighted by Mr. G., and that the chance of 
getting any part of the wedding cake was hopeless. -Some of 
the most " respectable " of the people forthwith got in private 
caucus, without " distinction of party," to see what was best to 
be done to allay the public excitement ; or since it was evident 
that the excitement was hourly increasing, and it was feared 
that some lawless violence might ensue, it was thought that " a 
more general meeting of the pieojjle was' advisable." In pur- 
suance of this determination on the part of the secret com- 
mittee, all of whom were personal enemies of Mr. G., yet, still 
moved by the most generous and patriotic motives, a large and 
"highly respectable" meeting was assembled at . 

The great White Owl was called to the chair, and Black 
Hawk appointed secretary. On motion of the Hon. John Bar- 
leycorn, it was unanimously 

" I. Resolved, That J. A. G., Esq., in giving a supper to a 
select company, to the exclusion of the people, exciting a deep 
and dangerous jealousy between the good citizens of Mercer, and 
thus endangering the lives of the men, women, and children^ 
was " a madman and a fanatic. 

" II. Resolved, That said supper be immediately ' abated as 
a nuisance,' ' peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must.' 

" III. Resolved, That this meeting be a committee forthwith 
to execute said resolutions." 

These resolusions, after a long, and calm, and patriotic re- 
port from the Hon. John Barleycorn, were unanimously adopted, 
amidst most deafening applause. The meeting, having first 
disguised themselves with masks, and being provided with all 
sorts of musical and unmusical instruments, among which were 
horns and pans, and horse rattles, and divers unknown har- 



" The President Shannon not long since delivered an address upon the " Philo- 
sophy of Slavery!" An address now, upon the child of that addreBB, mobs, 
should follow ! 



A NUISANCE ABATED. 401 

monies, proceeded from the town of Hanodsburg, in double file, 
to the number of about two hundred, three miles into the coun- 
try, to the splendid mansion of Mr. G. 

The most profound silence and the utmost good order pre- 
vailed, until they had surrounded the house. It was now thought 
just and equitable to give Mr. Ct. some opportunity of volunta- 
rily abating the nuisance, by a removal of the supper, where- 
upon the most unutterable discord of unearthly sounds, rent the 
dull ear of night, that ever broke upon the startled nerves of 
beatic wassailers ! The dance was stopped ; and the glad notes 
of youth, mirth, and love, froze into inarticulate whispers ; the 
bridegroom stood as a pillar of salt : and the lovely bride 
seemed a statue — Niobe in tears ! The indignant pater familia; 
rushed to the door, gun in hand, and threatened them with 
instant vengeance, unless they immediately retired ! The peo- 
ple, nowise daunted, drily remarked, that they had brought 
along some of those sorts of things themselves, and that Mr. 
C{., himself a Kentuckian, should know Kentuckians better ; 
and neither he, nor ten thousand such, should drive them from 
their purpose. That their bread-baskets were empty, and it 
was for him to say, whether they should be filled with bread or 
balls— but be filled they must ! And if blood was shed, it should 
be upon his, G.'s head, who had provoked the assault by first 
arming his house. It was plain that his purposes were infa- 
mous, else he would not have armed himself! and they con- 
cluded by appealing to Kentucky and to the world. 

Mr. G., seeing the contest hopeless, as it was now impossible 
to send out for neighboring slaveholders and fellow aristocrats, 
.sullenly retired into the parlor to explain his ill-success, when 
another fiendisli clash of hellish harmonies silenced all once 



more 



Mrs. G., with a woman's tact, hastily sent them a waiter of 
bread, bacon, and Avhisky ; they threw the waiter, and meats, 
and bottles, indignantly away ! This action on the part of Mrs. 
G., was " very imprudent," and tended " to increase the excite- 
ment against her husband, already very great." The great 
White Owl mysteriously " shook his head," and was heard to 
utter words full of ominous deprecations, " most unhappy, un- 
fortunate man !" After these w^ords were heard, it was mani- 
festly all over with poor G. ! Forming themselves into their 
26 . ^ 



402 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

original order, they proceeded, in double file, into the house, and 
into the supper room. 

The procession was headed by two tall, gaunt fellows, in 
women's clothes, with caps, and most capacious pockets. With- 
out ceremony the stack cakes were thrust into these ; then fol- 
lowed pyramids of candies, wreaths of flowers, lemon puddings, 
Charlottes a la Russe, and the untold paraphernalia of a wedding 
supper. The great pockets, still greedy as the grave, like Mil- 
ton's hell, stood, within the lowest deep, a lower deep, still open- 
ing to devour ! The table being stripped of its wines and eat- 
ables — utterly gutted, to a cricket's supper — the procession, in 
the most " calm and dignified matiner,^^ * retired. 

As an impartial conductor of the press, we congratulate the 
country, North and South, upon the peaceable abatement of this 
insufferable nuisance. No doubt some of the ultra and fanati- 
cal slaveholders of the South, will attempt to characterize this 
movement on the part of the people, as a mob, and it is very 
probable that some of the pro-slavery fanatics in Kentucky will 
echo these insolent misrepresentations. But every impartial 
man will see that Mr. G. had become intolerable ; and such 
conduct Mr. Walsh has thought to be "necessarily exceptive" 
in states where men are born fiee and equal ! " There was 
not the least outbreak, nor the least violence used, but only 
so much force used as was necessary to abate the iiuisance, 
and no more!^' And, as a friend of Mr. G.'s, we tell him, 
that he ought to congratulate himself that his life was spared ! 
For a just public will see that Mr. G. was doing wrong, and 
was plainly an incendiary ; else why did he keep that gun, 
and other dangerous weapons, to kill his fellow citizens with? 
The brave men who thus risked their lives in the defence of 
their most sacred rights will receive their just reward in the 
grateful appreciation of posterity ! 

Cavillers will no doubt ask, why did not the people resort 
to the laivs, instead of taking the remedy into their own hands? 
But the truth is, there was no law to meet the case. The con- 



•^ It may be contended here by some, that these pockets were intended as a 
burlesque upon "bustles," and aa insult to the ladies; not so — not so. But 
then, oil the other hand, what right had the women at G.'s to pile the agony 
60 high ? We triumphantly ask the question of all impartial men ! 



A NUISx\NCE. 403 

Btitution guarantied to Mr. G. the right, we admit, to eat the 
proceeds of his own labor, and to invite whom he pleased to 
partake ; and it is true, that a man's house, by the common law, 
is his castle, and the occasion of a wedding party most sacred. 
Yet it does not follow, therefore, that Mr. G. has a right in the 
exercise of this privilege to array one class against another, and 
bring republican equality — another constitutional right — into 
disrepute, and thus endanger the whole community. And it is 
clearly better that Mr. G. and his whole family, men, women, 
and children, should have been murdered outright, than that 
the peace and happiness of the whole people should have been 
disturbed by his " mad and incendiary " supper ! It may be 
true, that no such thing could have taken place in England or 
France — or in many other countries, savage, or civilized ; but 
then we must remember, that they are filled with tyrants and 
slavery ; and we are all free ; and equality and justice are the 
very basis of our government ! 

We know that our press has been threatened with violence, 
because we did not think proper to denounce Mr. G. in his day 
of popularity and power. But this cry arises from political and 
party enmity, because we have ever been the devoted friend of 
liberty and the whig party ! 

Mr. G. is a whig, yet we have ever been ready to offer him 
up as a sacrifice to principle ; and although his services to the 
party in times past have been equal to his ability, yet we did 
not scruple on that account to hand him over to the tender 
mercies of the democratic party, so soon as he became a traitor 
to liberty and the people. 

We conclude by congratulating the people upon the "orderly 
and dignified manner" in which this whole matter has been 
conducted ; and we assure them that we shall continue, with- 
out fear or reward, to maintain one independent press in our 
noble state, and ever dauntlessly contend for the Constitution 
and the laivs^ 

N. B. Since writing the above, some evil-minded persons, 
no doubt with a view of discrediting the glorious affair of yes- 
terday, tripped up an old cake-woman's heels, overturned her 
basket, and in the confusion, gathered up her cakes, and made 
off with them! Whereupon the people again met, and the 
same officers of the meeting presiding, it was unanimously 

Resolved: 1. " That the carrying off of the cakes by a set of 



404 THE WKITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

low and vulgar raggamuffin slaveholders had nothing to do 
with the gentlemanly and orderly meeting of the people, who 
robbed the supper-table the night before. 

"II. Resolved, That we organize ourselves into an armed po- 
lice, to prevent any further violence in the tripping up of old 
women's heels, and the low-minded stealing of cakes ! 

" III. Resolved, That these resolutions be published in the 
True American." 

The meeting then adjourned ; the canaille were then taken 
up, and heavily fined ; and when this sheet went to press, the 
utmost quiet and good order prevailed. Yet, to prevent the re- 
currence of the unhappy scenes, would it not be well for the 
next Legislature to make wedding suppers felonious 'I 



Slaveholding Insolence. 

We all remember the assertion of R. W., a i&w years ago, 
published in pamphlet form, that, free white laboring men were 
'■'■ white negroes ! '''' and we have lately heard our class — the 
non-slaveholders — termed, in derision, " tame Indians ! " Is 
not this insolence insufferable ? How mucii longer will slave- 
holders add insult to their other crimes against us? 

They first monopolize all tlie land ; refusing to sell, or rent 
an acre to the poor, at any price ; they prevent us from becom- 
ing mechanics and manufacturers, by driving out all our con- 
sumers and filling their places with slaves ; they take our 
school fund, for which our fathers fought and freely bled ; and 
when they have by the ruinous competition of unpaid wages, 
and compulsory labor, reduced us to poverty and ignorance, 
they add insult to injury by calling us " white negioes " and 
"tame Indians !" 

They fill all the offices of honor and profit with slaveholders, 
and have a portion of the judicial power, self-elective ; and 
when we venture to set up a press— a constitutional right — to 
complain of all this rank tyranny, they come upon us and mob 
us, "in a calm and dignified manner !" These aristocrats try, 
and acquit themselves ; why ? because they are slaveholders ; 
and the judges and jury are also slaveholders. But when a 



CROW-FOOT SKETCHES. 405 

few of the common people assemble together, and by the same 
appeal to original rights endeavor to get rid of what they deem 
an equal nuisance to a free press, commit a less criminal act, 
these same slaveholders are up in arms, come upon them, and 
fine them to the extent of the law. Is not such conduct out- 
rageous tyranny ? Let each free born white Kentuckian re- 
member these things, and tell them to his neighbors, and to Ins 
children. Let the seeds of a virtuous indignation sprout into 
mature growth, and in due time meet this insufferable despot- 
ism at tiie ballot-box. Let us stand upon the constitution 
and the laws, if our rights are further trenched upon ; teach 
these contemning tyrants that our hearts are as brave as theirs, 
our privileges as dear, our homes as loved, our hearths as sa- 
cred, and that come what may, slavery shall die, and Keti- 
tuckians shall be free ! 



r Crow-Foot Sketches. -^ , 

I profess to be rather an amateur than a connoisseur in the. 
fine arts : still I have a mode of judging for myself: at all events 
I know what pleases me. and why it pleases me. I hold that 
art can never surpass nature. I may stand alone in this theory, 
but still there I stand. It is true, I believe, that many times art 
may surpass ordinary nature ; but somewhere in her great and 
varied storehouse, there is the type of excellence. In my last, 
in giving my views about the Venus di Medicis, I followed out 
the theory of attaining the truly beautiful. We are too often 
led astray by authority : some flippant critic makes a remark;, 
some fashionable men or women take it up ; and some eau de 
Cologne poet perpetuates it ! Thus we hear of a woman's 
mouth like a Chcrnj ! The artist takes it up ; and in a great 
many portraits which I have seen, in public places and private 
houses, this absurd idea has been carried out literally, and we 
find the divine features of woman marred by "a little mouth 
like a ring." Now any man of sense and taste is utterly horri- 
fied at this. The truth is, a large mouth is truly beautiful. 
The expression of the face depends upon the mouth— the play 
of the infinite muscles of the lips as moved by various passions. 
I had rather observe a woman's mouth to see if she loved me, 



406 THE WRITLNGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

than even the eye : the one can be held steadilT/, the other 
cannot, when they are moved. If this be true, as every observer 
will attest, what shall we say of " a cherry niouth ? -' Oh ! oh I 

I was induced to make these remarks in consequence of see- 
mg Anelli's Dream. If nature be the true standard of excel- 
lence, it must be subjected to severe criticism. 

The artist has attempted an ambitious painting-, "The End 
of the World," on colossal canvas. Now 1 contend that a 
painting cannot be natural and allegorical at once. He repre- 
sents the world, or a part of it, on fire, and the people flying in 
great crowds — to the churches ? no ! but to an allegory — a 
woman dressed in white robes — -" representing the church ! '^ 
Does not every one feel the absurdity of this? I could give 
what I deem many other grave faults, but my limits forbid. 
Many of the figures are very well drawn ; others are not : some 
admirably outstanding by the right use of light and shade ; 
others are chalky. It is on the whole, an interesting painting, 
and being the '■'■End of the World''' will do for the prudish of 
course to look at ! Although there are some figures that would 
put the Venus to the blush ! Just as many modest women will 
not go to the theatre, who do not scruple to see the circus horses ! 
or live Indians ! or rather their tails of horse hair or peacock 
feathers ! 

But enough of pictures. The Blockley Alms House stands 
beyond the Schuylkill on high and pleasant ground in sight of 
Philadelphia. It is an immense quadrangular building, three 
stories high, inclosing an interior space of several acres. It is 
owned by the county of Philadelphia, and appropriated exclu- 
sively to the paupers of that county. The institution is managed 
by a steward, accountant, agent, etc., including a resident phy- 
sician. They manufacture, and cultivate a farm. 

The officers are very polite, and Dr. P., the resident physician, 
showed me through the whole building. Everything appeared 
clean and comfortable, beyond my expectations. The food is 
good and abundant. The great mass eat in common ; and the 
cooking, tabling, etc., was done on the most wholesale and 
economical plan. The inmates were divided out into diflferent 
groups for sitting and sleeping. I saw some real " old soldiers" 
who, chewing tobacco, smoking around the stove, telling tales, 
or reading to each other, seemed to take life fairly enough ! A 
department is devoted to the insane. The arrangements here 



CROW-FOOT SKETCHES. 407 

were limited ; too many together, and not sufficiently assorted 
according to their different diseases. The physician spoke of a 
contemplated enlargement of this department. When asked if 
the malformation of the heads, many of which were remarkable, 
were confirmatory of the theory of phrenology ? he answered, 
No! And thus confirmed my theory of craniology, or the 
general necessary quantity of brain, acting as a whole. 

It was painful to see the sick females in the hospital — the 
awful sequences of crime and destitution. The most aggravated 
diseases seized upon some : and I was told that the great ma- 
jority of " women about town" died young, or fell at last into 
the poor house, either insane, or horribly diseased ! 

Seven apartments were filled with young women and young 
infants ; and it would have done an old bachelor good to have 
seen twenty or tliirty cradles all going at once ; while anti-Mal- 
thusians might learn a solemn lesson; for here were sometimes 
twins in the cradle, and not a penny in the pocket ! The chil- 
dren were, some of them at least, bright-eyed and beautiful ; 
and might well have stood as arguments to Richard the Third's 
theory ! 

The sight of the orphan children, from four to nine years old, 
was truly touching in every respect. One little girl was in tears, 
because her former nurse had left her ; and she had not yet 
learned in the bitter school of adversity that for her friendship was 
forbidden. Ah ! who can fathom the bitterness of that poor 
child's heart ? Her governess was to her, home, sister, brother, 
mother, and playmate, and she was taken awa}- ! 

I know not liow it is with others, but no sermon ever reaches 
me as the simple sight of orphans. If we are angry, our wrath 
is subdued : if we are sorrowful, it is purified : if we are proud, 
we are humbled: if hard-hearted and selfish, we are melted 
down. Well may it be said that charity covers a multitude of 
sins : well may we claim future reward for relieving the sorrow- 
ful hearts of " these little ones." I have seen women in all phases 
and in all places ; but never seemed they to us so divine, as 
when engaged in this special charity of " visiting the orphan." 
The commonest features are lighted up with a benign and holy 
radiance, till they pass from homely to comely, and from comely 
to divine ! 



40B THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

LEXINGTON, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26. 

John H. Pleasants, the Martyr. 

When we received the news of Mr. Pleasant's murder, we 
felt instinctively that he had died like his illustrious namesake, 
because of his denunciation of slavery. Being without an ex- 
change from Virginia, we waited with deep anxiety to hear the 
real cause of that tragical affair. For we knew too well the 
Jesuitical Machiavelism of the South to expect truth through the 
regular channel of the press ! We have gone through the 
same sort of usage ourselves, and, therefore, can speak know- 
ingly. 

We give in another column our authority for what we say ; 
and do not doubt it was worse than it is represented. Will not 
some friend send us the Richmond Enquirer, that we may see 
how a brave and sensitive soul has been forced to die ? How is 
the state of the case ? Mr. Pleasants is admitted on all hands, 
to have been a man, noble, brave, and chivalric. In the 
day of his power, his opponents were silent as the grave, or 
dealt in far off side blow calumny. But Mr. P. sees slavery 
eating up his once proud native state, in whose fair character 
and enduring prosperity, the honor of his name^ and the hope 
of his children, are identified, and he dares like a man, and 
true patriot to speak out against the mountain curse and giant 
lie ! Forthwith old feuds are renewed ; cowardly blood hounds 
rage afresh ; bitter, vindictive, cahunnious words pierce his 
fiery spirit to the quick ; no friend now comes up to his vindi- 
cation ; sullen silence and distrust, or secret connivance, seize 
upon the mass of his quondam partizans. We would that he had 
had the unbending spirit to have hurled back taunt for taunt, 
and, reposing on the consciousness of the great and indestruc- 
tible right, had stood up only in his own defence ! But he 
did not; in a moment of despair and M^ounded pride, he 
hurries unequally armed to the unequal ccmihat—and Vir- 
ginians hope is gone ! 

Does the public know that an " artillery sword " is as for- 
midable as a bowie knife ; and that a sword cane is the meanest 
of all weapons ? But enough. Slavery demanded the sacrifice ! 



PRAYER AND SLAVERY. 4Q9 

and sooner or later they would have had it ! Therefore it is 
vain now to ask why this thing was not stopped ? Or at all 
events, why less deadly weapons were not insisted upon ? Sla- 
very ! Slavery ! 

Reader, have you read the funeral obsequies of (his noble man ? 
Could you contain yourself? Did you hear his address to his 
old and honored mother? Did you feel in your inmost soul 
his words to his orphan son ? Then can you form some con- 
ception of the costly sacrifices which the South demands to be 
given up to her only God ! 



Alien and Sedition Law again. 

Horace Greely's reporters have been expelled from the gallery 
of the house of representatives ! What right had Greely to 
expose the drunkenness, vulgarity, and stolidity of the slaveoc- 
racy, and its Northern bootlicks ? Is this not a free country ? Is 
it not the land of the rights of man ? Is not this the home of 
the oppressed ? A plague on all tyrants ! Have we not a 
right to enslave whom we please? 



Prayer AND Slavery. 

There are many men professing the Christian religion, who 
also profess to believe slavery a divine institution ! Now we 
have lived thus long, and never yet have heard a prayer offered 
up to (Jod in its behalf! If it is of God,. Christians pray for 
it ! Try it ; it will strengthen your faith, and purify your 
soul. 

O, thou omnipotent and benevolent God, who hast made 
all men of one flesh, thou father of all nations, we do most 
devoutly beseech thee to defend and strengthen thy institution, 
American slavery ! Do thou, O Lord, tigliten the chains of our 
black brethren, and cause slavery to increase and multiply 
throughout the world ! And whereas many nations of the 
earth have loved their neighbors as themselves, and have done 



410 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

unto others as they would that others should do unto them, and 
have broken every bond, and have let the oppressed go free, do 
thou, O God, turn their hearts from their evil ways, and let them 
seize once more upon the weak and defenceless, and subject 
them to eternal servitude ! 

And O God ! although thou hast commanded us not to muzzle 
even the poor ox that treadeth out the corn, yet let them labor 
unceasingly without reward, and let their own husbands, and 
wives, and children, be sold into distant lands without crime, 
that thy name may be glorified, and that vmbelievers may be 
confounded, and forced to confess that indeed thou art a God of 
justice and mercy ! Stop, stop, O God, the escape from the 
prison house, by which thousands of these " accursed " men flee 
into foreign countries, where nothing but tyranny reigns ; and 
compel them to enjoy the unequalled blessings of our own free 
land ! 

Whereas our rulers in the Alabama legislature have emanci- 
pated a black man, because of some eminent public service, thus 
bringing thy holy name into shame, do thou, O God, change 
their hearts, melt them into mercy, and into obedience to thy 
will, and cause them speedily to restore the chain to that unfor- 
tunate soul ! And O God, thou searcher of all hearts, since 
many of thine own professed followers — when they come to lie 
down on the bed of death, and enter upon that bouine whence 
no traveller returns, where every one shall be called to account 
for the deeds done in the body, whether they be good or whether 
they be evil^ — emancipate their fellow men, failing in faith, and 
given over to hardness of heart, and blindness of percep- 
tion of the truth, do thou, O God, be merciful to them, and 
the poor recipients of their deceitful philanthropy, and let the 
chain enter in the Jlesh^ and the iron into the soul for ever ! 



SiSivioNDi's Italian Republics. 

This able work should be read by every lover of liberty. 
Sismondi and Guizot both argue that slavery was the cause of 
the overthrow of the Roman republic. The captives taken in 
foreign wars were reduced to slavery, farm was added to farm, 



SISMONDI'S REPUBLICS. , 411 

and villa to villa, till the whole of Italy was populated by im- 
perious, indolent masters on one hand, and abject servile culti- 
vators of the soil on the other. The mechanic arts decayed ; 
the yeomanry and middle class — the curia became almost ex- 
tinct. Labor everywhere became dishonorable. 

Hence, when in the time of the emperors, it became necessary 
to fill up the legions, foreign troops were taken into pay. And 
at last, when the Barbarians made an irruption into Italy, there 
was no seeming resistance. Province after province fell before 
the invaders ; town after town was sacked and pillaged, till the 
central city, the "mistress of the world" was herself enslaved! 
Tiberius Gracchus foresaw this event. He first admitted the 
freedmen into the class of voters ; and still seeing that class 
decay, by tlie spread of slaves and the extinction of the middle 
class (the same process which is now going on in all the slave 
states), he proposed tlie Agrarian law as a desperate remedy to 
save the republic from certan ruin ; " For is it not better," said 
he, " to have a freeman on your soil instead of a slave, who 
will be a soldier in time of danger, than to hold large tracts of 
land for the benefit of the first invader?" But the slave- 
owners rose upon him, and in the most "dignified and calm 
manner," murdered him ! And the consequence was as Grac- 
chus had foretold. 

Invasion came ; the slaves welcomed any change, and the 
masters were neither capable of making, nor did they make 
any resistance. Their palaces were plundered, and they and 
their children in turn reduced to slavery. Thus did nature 
purge herself of the slough of her violated laws ; and such is 
our fate, unless we return to justice and eternal truth ■! For 
nearly ten centuries after Julius Cajsar, the Roman empire suf- 
fered the purgatory of her crimes ! At last, when anarchy 
became utterly intolerable, justice began to be done. The 
necessity of self-protection caused men to free their slaves, and 
make soldiers of them. They collected in walled towns, and 
the arts began to rise once more, till a common interest enabled 
the small republics to resist the ravages of foreign and domestic 
robbers. Thus slavery destroyed Italy, and llberit/ and jus- 
tice restored it ! 

Americans, look back through all history and read your des- 
tiny ! "Why will ye die?" 



412 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 



Justice. 

We give our readers in another column an act of the last 
Kentucky Legislature, entitled, "' An act to amend the penal 
laws." Justice is usually regarded as the highest attribute of 
God, without which we cannot imagine his existence. The 
Heathen of old regarded justice as the highest attribute of man. 
Aristides won the proudest title of all the ancients, for he was 
called the just. The Heathen also represented justice as the 
chief virtue of legislators and judges. The celebrated court of 
Areopagus, which was legislative and judicial, sat in the night, 
that it might have no respect to persons. And the image of 
justice was represented as blind, weighing evidence, without re- 
spect to time, place, or the circumstances of the accused. The 
Scriptures bitterly denounce the unjust judge ; and all men 
have united in severe condemnation of partial judges. Why ? 
Because occupying posts of honor and responsibility, their in- 
justice is more terrible, because wide-spread and remediless ! 
Legislators occupy the same place as judges, and are amenable 
to the same moral standard as the judiciary. 

We then ask our legislators if the law above cited is justl 
Every one will at once answer, no ! How then can they hope 
to escape from the violated laws of conscience and the indigna- 
tion of men ? A man who receives an indirect pecuniary re- 
ward for selling justice, is equally criminal with the one who 
receives a bribe direct for a perverted judgment, or betrays his 
country for gold, or takes pay for imbruing his hands in the 
blood of innocent men. The legislature was, no doubt, induced 
to pass tliis law in order to secure their tenure of slaves. But 
it cannot be rightly pleaded, that one injustice is necessary to 
maintain another. On the contrary, this eternal violation of 
all the laws of justice, and conscience, for the maintenance of 
slavery, should open the eyes of the most blind, to the iniquity 
of a system, which tramples under foot the best feelings of the 
heart, the firmest conclusions of reason, and builds its Jugger- 
naut upon the crushed instincts and holiest aspirations of the 
human soul. It was a noble saying of an old Roman states- 
man, that such an act was seemingly " expedient, but 7iot 
rightP What did he tacitly acknowledge ? That right was 
in the long run expedient. 



JUSTICE. 413 

We hear continual cries among slaveholders, that freed blacks 
are incapable of taking care of themselves. As honest men, 
then, they are bound to open up to them ever}^ road to improve- 
ment, which does not trench upon the rights of others. Hut say 
some, it is wrong to make or deal in spirituous liquors. Well, 
then, the whites should be subject to the sa7ne penalties. If 
laws are made for the protection of the weak — what a perversion 
of all things, Human and Divine, to punish the weak, merely be- 
cause we have the power instead of protecting them against pow- 
er ? The greatest injustice in this act, however, is in its penalties 
which may deprive a man of his liberty for giving a brother man 
a glass of " Hard Cider .'" Does slavery require such propping 
up as this ? And are there Divines Avho yet contend that it is 
of God ? 

The clause selling emigrants — black citizens of the sister 
States — into slavery, for exercising a clear constitutional right, 
is not only infamous, but being as it is clearly contrary to that 
clause of the U. S. Constitution which says, " the citizens of 
each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of 
citizens in the several States," w^e hope will never be attempted 
to be executed. 

We know some contend that blacks, or free negroes, are not 
" citizens,''^ within the meaning of the constitution. But will 
any man point out any absurdity for which slaveholders will 
not contend ? Have they not gravely contended that slavery is 
of God ? Have they not contended that Africans were not men 
—and that, too, with the best blood of the South flowing in 
their veins ? Who shall be surprised, then, that they contend 
that blacks are not, and cannot he " citizens.'^ But test their 
argument. Suppose Jews become odious in Kentucky, and a 
law is passed denying Jews citizenship, and subjecting them to 
slavery if found in our State ; would not the constitution of the 
Union step in to save a New York Jew fiom a Kentucky dun- 
geon, or life long slavery? Suppose the same of a Dutchman, 
or an Irishman, or a Yankee, or a Catholic, or a Protestant, 
who happened to become odious in a particular State ; would 
not the National constitution fly to the rescue ? Yes, so long 
as the humblest citizen of the huinblest State in the Union, 
shall be compelled to fight the battles of Kentucky, so long 
should the national government protect him in his rights, natu- 
ral and civil. And when this Union shall fail in this first pur- 



414 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

pose of its creation, by playing the slave of Tyrants, we say let 
it perish ! In some of the States of this Union, blacks are as 
nmch " citizens" as any member of the legislature is a citizen 
of Kentucky. And Massachusetts would have just as much 
right under the constitution, and natural law, and more too, to 
imprison Messrs. Hardin and Dixon, or sell them for life, for 
being slaveholders, as Kentucky has to do the same thing to 
men guilty of being "/ree ajid hlackP 

As a friend of our fellow men, even of slaveholders, we would 
rather that these things should not be ! But as an advocate 
of universal liberty, we are not disturbed, because these repeat- 
ed acts of outrage, and God-defying injustice, may be necessa- 
ry to arouse the Christian world to the damning sin of slavery; 
to teach the great mass of Americans, that there is not, and 
cannot be any compromise between liberty and slavery ; and, 
that if they themselves would continue free, slavery must 
die ! 



Crow-Foot Sketches, 

" Think'st because thou art virtuous, 
There shall be no more cakes and ale ? 
Yes, by St. Anne, and ginger shall be hot 
In the mouth too ! " 

The Wistar parties in the Quaker City, were originally in- 
tended, we are told, to bring a few friends together, succes- 
sively at each others houses, at stated periods, to enjoy society, 
rather than the luxuries of the table ; but, alas ! for the " un- 
eradicable taint of sin," they have degenerated into regular 
set suppers and honest eating. How could it be otherwise 
when women are excluded? Without women there is no 
poetry, no imagination, no soul ; conversation slackens into 
monosyllables ; and oysters and grapes are sweeter than the 
tones of things with beards on ! In vain may distinguished 
strangers be sought out to give these banqueting soirees 
piquancy ; women are not there, and the light is out ! Yet 
Philadelphia aspires to literary reputation, though I deem her, 
in this respect, behind both New York and Boston. I know not 
upon what the men most vaunt themselves ; but the women 
claim to be lovelier and more tasteful in their dress, equi- 



CROW-FOOT SKETCHES. 415 

page, houses, and so on, than those in the great Gotliani. But 
I found the Gothamites rather snubbing the Plnladclphians as 
provincial. Certainly there is a staid and formal subservience 
to rule in Philadelphia, far less captivating than the bold, dash- 
ing originality and variety of the New Yorkers. I shall not 
novi^ speak of those agreeable and long to be remembered ac- 
quaintances, who honored me with their hospitality and consi- 
deration. Invited by a friend to look in upon a private Polka 
party at the Assembly Rooms, I readily consented. The build- 
ing is large, and handsomely fitted up with a great profusion 
of mirrors, which of all other furniture produces the most bril- 
liant effect. Most exquisite music was streaming from the 
band, and many sets, after the manner of ([uadrilles, were luxu- 
riating in this most sensual of dances. Being a man of no great 
modesty, and not at all afraid to look a woman in the face, I 
advanced half way iip the room, that I might take an ocular 
survey of all the inmates. I must be frank enough to admit 
that in dress the women were up to my fullest expectation. 
Most of them had the good sense to study general effect, and 
dress of course without any regard to fashion ; each one con- 
sulting her own form and complexion. In the ornaments of 
the hair this. was very remarkably the case. The hair was ge- 
nerally braided, and so arranged as to give tone to the head, 
I have occasionally seen hair that might be let down into curls 
with good effect. When a woman is rather fidl in person, 
quiet in manners, and has a veri/ luxiiriant head of hair, she 
may venture upon this hazardous experiment. But if a woman 
be frisky, lean, and thinly covered with Esau's wear, she must 
spare me ! The polka is a compound of the waltz, and free 
and general attitudinizing. The head, the arms, the feet, and 
bustle, are in most animated commotion, and there is a ming- 
ling of hands, waists, curls, and whiskers, that curdles the blood 
of the most veteran surgeon. Most exquisite, delicious entan- 
glement, who would hesitate to put the Gordian knot to the 
sword ? A very graceful ])rettij woman may dance the polka ; 
a very ugly one ought not ; a very modest one will not ! But I 
am a backwoodsman ; and in the South an oriental idea of wo- 
man's exclusiveness too much prevails. When the woman I 
love dances the polka with some "goatee" satyr, we should like 
first to serve an apprenticeship to Captain Brighthorn's stoi- 
cism ! 



416 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

Brighthorn was an Indian Platonist ; he took his guest to a 
running stream and thrust his walking cane into the crystal 
tide : " See there," said he. " Well," said the white man. He 
then withdrew his cane : " What do you see now ?" said the 
stoic. The white buried the jealousies of civilization in his 
assumed determination : he looked into the water, and into the 
face of the " Platonist," and said no more. I say no more ! 

The Jew's ball was at the Musical Fund Hall. It was com- 
posed of that peculiar people, with a large infusion of invited 
guests. The women were more "assorted" from fashionable 
to respectable. They were generally good-looking — few im- 
pressive. The Jews have generally black eyes. I like a dark 
grey, a chestnut, oi- any transparent color, better. In a truly fine 
eye, there is great expansion of the iris, which by exposing more 
of the pupil, gives to passion its manifestation, and a deepening 
of color and variation of hue, as the soul is more touched. The 
polka, the waltz, and quadrilles were here danced. Amid mu- 
sic, and bright eyes, and sweet voices, I was well nigh giving 
up my fust impressions of Philadelphia, and I forgot for a while 
the fresh fawn-like fairies of my forest home. 

That night my pillow was as hard as a chestnut log, and my 
bed, some how or other, brought to my mind an old fellow call- 
ed in olden times, Procrustes ! I was as uneasy as a horse in 
running water; my eyes closed in vain against intrusive ima- 
ges, and sleep checked not the tide of thought. 

I wandered alone in a spacious room, gorgeously and luxu- 
riously fitted up — but, 

"I felt like one who treads alone 
Some banquet hall deserted, 
Whose lights are fled, whose garland's dead, 
And allbut he departed." 

I strode the room in sullen silence, interrupted by long, deep, 
and heart-breaking sighs. From out of the floor — by that fa- 
cility which dreams allow, there rose a most beautiful woman, 
clothed in pure white ; the face seemed like one whom I had 
passionately loved in early life ; yet I knew her not ; her eyes 
were filled with sympathizing tears, and a most sad and me- 
lancholy expression clouded her otherwise most angelic features. 
" Oh, restless, unhappy man, what would you have?" Timidly 
raising my eyes to hers, by association perhaps, I ventured to 



CROW-FOOT SKETCHES. 417 

reply, " Beauty P Immediately she sank into the floor ; a 
bright Hght filled the whole room ; and the most exquisitely 
beautiful women that eye hath seen, or heart conceived, sprang 
as lilies from the field, or tulips from the loam, on an April 
day. Their eyes were upon me with a deep, liquid, unmistak- 
able beam of love. I clasped one, and then another, in eager, 
burning embrace. But. alas ! when touched, their features 
grew coarse and disgusting, and the mellow, hesitating tones 
of love croaked unwelcome discord ! My soul filled with sad 
satiety. They were gone ! 

Once more came up that sweet melancholy face : " What 
now ? not yet happy — what will you have V Pleasure ; I 
answered, in a fretful tone — and she was gone. The walls 
were gone ; and I stood on a hill of gently graceful acclivity, 
and a magnificent city sprang up to my astonished vision ; and 
golden cupolas, and jewelled spires, and flashing minarets, rose 
on all sides to the deep blue Heavens. I was in an elegant 
coach, and fiery blooded steeds bore me, with eagle speed along 
a forest arched road of unresisting smoothness, to the suburbs. 
It seemed full blossomed June ; and a grassy lawn of velvet 
touch spread before me, till it was lost in the obstruction of na- 
ture's myriad trees and flowers. The sun's rays evaporated the 
vegetable juices, and gave the atmosphere that wiry spider web 
motion wiiich tokens full spring, and invites to coolness of shade 
and luxurious repose. Pavilions were spread at pleasant inter- 
vals, with music, dancing, and all the varieties of delicate food. 
All things were full of joy and life ; but the butterfly was ab- 
sorbed in its own delicious tonguing of flowers ; bird answered 
to bird ; and lovely couples of men and women seemed gazing 
in each other's faces, in rapturous confidence ; and from all ani- 
mated nature there came no glance of recognition— no note of 
sympathy to me ! Deep melancholy seized upon my inmost 
soul ; and I was in the dusky hall once more ! 

Again my melancholy guardian looked upon me and once 
more questioned me. I answered through clenched teeth— 
Glory. Immediately there stood before me a most majestic 
woman. She wore a simple riband bound around her temples. 
Taking hold of it— as a conjurer draws tow from his mouth 
converting it into brilliant silk— she tore the ornament from her 
temples : "and with most sweet sounds, wreaths of gems, flowers, 
and coronets of most inconceivable lustre, fell around me thick 
27 



418 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

as leaves in wintry weather. On some were written in electric 
brightness " Thou wer't not born to die " — " The saviour of his 
country "— " Immortality." 

Then came a deep and far-off shout, as if the great deep was 
broken up : and myriad voices greeted me : and mid martial 
music and banners flying, they bound tbe wreaths upon my 
brow ! And men and women gazed upon me with a fixed and 
distant and respectful gaze. But my heart was frozen beneath 
the sunny current of general admiration ! In untold isolation 
and bitterness of soul I sought once more the deserted hall ! 
And again arose the accustomed face. " What now, impious 
man ? thou hast had pleasure, and beauty, and glojy, and still 
dost thou provoke the gods with thy insatiable desires?" The 
tone was not at all in accordance with the divine and pure love- 
liness of her seraphic face. Tears now in turn streamed from 
my eyes ; my heart seemed to have melted with an indefinable 
aspiration — tell me, I pray, who thou art — and grant me yet 
one more request — thy pure love ! With most ineffable arch- 
ness of manner she brushed back the profuse curls, which 
masked her face, and laying her hand upon ray shoulder, she 

breathed deliciously, " I am M y, your wife ! you runaway 

rascal ! '* 

I bit about four square inches of cloth and feathers out of 
Jones' pillow ! 



LEXINGTON, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 1. 

Debate on Slavery, Cincinnati, 1845, upon the Ques- 
tion : Is Slaveholding in itself sinful, and the 

RELATION BETWEEN MaSTER AND SlAVE A SINFUL 

RELATION? Affirmative, Rev. J. Blanchard, Pastor 
OF THE Sixth Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati, 
Negative, N. L. Rice, D. D., Pastor of the Central 
Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati. 

This is an octavo volume of four hundred and eighty pages. 
We read at the time of the debate a current report of it. We 
are glad the debate has taken place. We rejoice at its publica- 



DEBATE ON SLAVERY. ■ " 419 

tion and its large sale. We give a heading of ihe work, that 
every Kentuckian and every American may know where to get 
it. We fear nothing from the discussion of slavery : we hope 
all things from its thorough investigation. AVe know Mr. 
Blanchard, and we know Mr. Rice. Mr. Rice was our school- 
mate, rather older than ourself We remember him as a quiet 
silent bright black-eyed boy, who was evidently a thinker. We 
are tenacious of our school-boy attachments ; we were, there- 
fore, pained at the position which he has thought proper to 
assume with regard to the great question of the rights of man. 
For upon this question we know neither father nor mother, nor 
sister nor brother, but deserting all, we cling to the higher, holier 
vindication of the universal brotherhood of men, without which 
those endearing names are swept away by every breeze of 
popular caprice. Mr. Blanchard is barely known to us; yet the 
cause is a species of freemasonry, that assures us of a noble 
nature, and a firm basis of confidence and friendship. We will 
not say, therefore, that we are an impartial critic. We are not. 
A tory of the Revolution was hardly a just historian of the 
whigs of that day ; far less was the whig an impartial judge of 
the motives and merits of the tory. We speak, therefore, of 
Mr. Rice with the barrier of eternal principles separating us. 
He advocates the cause of despotism and irresponsible power ; 
we of liberty and self-government. If Mr. Rice proves his case, 
an African is not the only sufferer ; we and our children are 
also to reap the bitter fruits of the horrible truth. If Mr. Rice 
maintains his position, the American Revolution was a crime 
and a failure ; the blood that stains the hands of our fathers, 
.'uul every life lost in that contest, is a murder upon their souls ! 
The assumption of the British government to tax us in all cases 
whatever, according to Mr. Rice, was not itself sinful and 
oppressive, because the relation between the oppressor and the 
oppressed was not necessarily sinful, but might have existed in 
a harmless state ! They taxed us only for our own good, of 
which they were to be the sole judges. If Mr. Rice is right, 
the theory that government is instituted by the authority of the 
governed is wrong. If Mr. Rice is true, the dogma that all 
men are entitled by nature to life, liberty, and happiness is false. 
If Mr. Rice is correct, the idea that society is formed for the 
better security of natural rights is miserably false ! But we 
cannot pursue this subject : every one feels and knows that he 



420 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

cannot overturn these self-evident truths. It therefore only re- 
mams for us to follow Mr. Rice tediously through his whole 
volume, and to expose his shallow sophistry — his absurdities — 
his false assumptions — his perverted facts ! We are vain enough 
to believe that in our Philadelphia lecture, we have in a short, 
and incontrovertable argument, maintained successfully, that 
" slaveholding is in itself sinful." 

We sliall now follow Mr. Rice and attempt to prove that its 
concomitants — its sequences, are such as we had a right to sup- 
pose would flow from a fountain of unmixed tyranny. We 
venture not to follow in Mr. Blanchard's tracks. He has, in a 
giant stride, passed over the whole ground. We need not say 
that he has not left Mr. Rice burying ground ! The sophist 
and dialectician, and special pleader, has been met by his equal 
in all these, and a man in soul, and an orator in speech. 
Living in a slave state, we shall attempt to reveal some things 
which were hidden from Mr. B.'s eye, whilst doffing the gown, 
we can strike where clerical brotherhood forbade. In following 
Mr. Rice, we will attempt no system of generalization, but meet 
his arguments and assertions as they come, the important and 
the trivial. This method, so opposite to our taste, and destruc- 
tive of our time, we pursue, because many minds, which it is 
important for us to reach, are rarely touched by a more logical 
method. 

We commence with Mr. Rice's first speech, and shall take 
one each week, till we pass through the whole book. 

We w^ar not upon the christian religion, but upon its abusers, 
not upon its supporters, but upon its traitors ! The church 
has a right to ask of a man of the world, a respectful and un- 
wavering vindication of the christian religion ; the statesman, 
and the man of the world, have a right to demand of the church, 
that it be pure, and betray not the rights of man, and thereby 
the cause of God ! 

Mr. B. having led off: Mr. R. begins by alluding to the cor- 
respondence ; it did not originate with him ; he had no desire 
" to engage in a public discussion of the claims of abolitionism." 
True Mr. R, knew it a hard case ; he felt, no doubt, that he was 
selling his birth-right for a mess of pottage, for a little brief 
notoriety, he was sowing a harvest of coming infamy through 
all time ! For is not the advocate of slavery the enemy of the 
human race? and will they not heap up unmeasured curses 



DEBATE OiN SLAVERY. 42X 

upon the man who shall attempt to mar the hnage of God, and 
leduce them to the level of the beasts of the field, who, when 
the belly is full and the body warm, lie down in sleep — aspire 
not— and hope not for elevation, now, or hereafter ? 

He here begins to play the sophist, the dialectician, the logist. 
For remember, reader, the question is not " the claims of aboli- 
tionism." If abolitionism be shown wrong, Mr. R.'s proposition 
is not advanced one step, for it may be proved damnable, and 
slavery still be not of God! So, when you press a slaveholder, 
and are about to corner him, and impale him as well nigh infa- 
mous, he escapes by flying the track, for inunediately he dis- 
covers that the English are no better than they ought to be ! 
The mines of Cornwall are disemboweled, the ranker atmo- 
sphere of Leeds is vented upon you ! It is true we are mur- 
derers, but they are parricides ! If true, is the murder atoned 1 
Is it any the less a nuirder, because a more gross outrage has 
been connnitted elsewhere ? The devils in hell, Milton tells us, 
love company ! 

We pardon the frailty of poor human nature. But the argu- 
ment, the fact stands untouched, eternally unshaken ! 

Mr. R. admits that something is to be hoped from moral dis- 
cussion. '• We thank thee, Jew ! " The slaveholders hate this 
more than all otiier arguments. The shrewd Macchiavehan 
will tell you, touch the economical question if you want to effect 
anything, but you injure the cause by making a moral question 
of it ! The highway robber will listen very coldly to " the calm, 
ilispassionate" attempt to convince him, that his gain in the 
long run would be, to deliver up ! But denounce him, and 
above all show him the halter, and he will begin to squirm ! 
We think with Mr. R. the halter is the bettei' argument ! 

Mr. R. complains, that Mr. B. won't talk " abstractions ; " he 
gives some of the realities of slavery ! Mr. R., no doubt, is 
against slavery in the " abstract ! " Very good ! only talk, Mr. 
B., about a thing that never existed and cannot exist, and we, 
who have the stain upon our garments, will be very much 
obliged to you! Do, now, Mr. B., come to the ^'- definition,^'' I 
hate those gory locks ! Mr. R. feels that he has to encounter 
prejudice ! Indeed ! the human soul revolts at tyranny, neither 
does it love its advocate : even a stranger will not soften down 
into pleasant smiles ! 

How will you work it now, my worthy and acute sophist, to 



422 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

get on the blind side of your audience ? By all means, raise 
your crest ; get the jockey word ; claim that the advocate of 
slavery is the friend of liberty ; and that the advocate of liber- 
ty is the friend of slavery ! To be sure this would be presum- 
ing a great deal upon the gullibility of your audience ; bui. 
then man loves to be humbugged ! We thank God that there 
are few men living who venture to be the pure, unmixed 
friends of slavery ; and that they yet have respect enough for 
virtue to assume her livery ! While there is life there is hope ! 

The question is not whether it is right to force a free man, 
charged with no crime, into slavery !" Indeed ! say you so ? 
then all slavery iwt of crime falls to the ground ! Come home 
then, Mr. Rice, according to this admission, there is not a right- 
ful slave in Kentucky, come home and help us to purge her of 
this usurpation ! We refer our readers to our Philadelphia lec- 
ture for further elucidation of this point. For the title being 
bad, all its modes of transfer are bad. The civil and common 
law says : " Non alienum, plus ipse habet." Mr. R. deems that 
he is not about to justify those who, at a future day, may en- 
slave our children ;" yet he is justifying a similar thing — present 
slavery, hQ\ng future to the first usurpers, though present to us ! 
Is not this contemptible ? 

To reduce a man to slavery, he admits, " is a crime of the 
first magnitude." " It would be very wicked in me, whether by 
force or fraud, to reduce a rich man to poverty, but how far I 
am bound to enrich a man, reduced to poverty by others, is a 
very different question." This is a specimen of Mr. Rice's mode 
of argument. This is one of his sophistries. These are the 
things which we intend to use up ! 

Mr. Rice is not bound to raise a man reduced to poverty, by 
the fraud or force of another — unless he has some, or all of 
the goods taken away from the poor victim of fraud or force ! 
In that case, as the reverend gentleman seems to be very obtuse 
in discerning the right, we venture, unasked, to tell him what he 
ought to do — give up the stolen and robbed plunder ! If men 
see great principles of morals at once, as he contends, we are un- 
charitable enough to believe that he sees this thing as we 
do! 

Again, if a rich man is reduced to poverty by fraud or force, 
and Mr. R. has none of the tainted goods — there is another 



DEBATE ON SLAVERY. 423 

duty imposed upon him — to use all the power God has given 
hi?n, to cause the robber to restore ! 

As he is dull, we put. it thus : if Mr. Rice has a slave reduced 
to slavery by fraud or force, for anything else than debt and 
crime, restore him to his hberty ! If Kentuckians hold slaves 
on any other terms — vote to restore them to their liberty ! If 
we have all been equally guilty of the robbery — let us all share 
the loss — and "let justice be done, though the heavens fall." 

We put it to all impartial men, if Mr. Rice's sophism is not 
exploded ? 

Mr. R. says : " The question is not, whether the laws by which 
slavery is regulated are just or not ? For by that rule the con- 
jugal and parental relations are in themselves sinful !" Let's 
strip him again ! Now Ave both agree that man is by nature, 
free ; that being nature, then is not sinful. Again : marriage 
is by nature, we both agree, a riglit relation independent of 
law, and of course not sinful. Now the law takes hold of 
the free man, and makes him a slave — which Mr. Rice admits 
" to be a crime of the first magnitude."' Where then is the 
crime ? In the law, of course ! repeal the law and the crime 
ceases — the injury ceases ! Now, once more the parental rela- 
tion and the marriage relation, was a good and pure one : but 
the Roman law comes in. says Mr. R., and gives the father 
power of life over his child, and the husband power to degrade 
and tyrannize over the wife. ' Indeed ! what is the remedy? 
Repeal the laws giving the improper power, and its conjugal 
relation, and the parental relation is not objectionable ! But 
now mark the culminating point of the sophistry ! Therefore, 
marriage, parental guardianship, and slavery, are not in them- 
selves sinful ! It should have been stated thus: Therefore the 
marriage, and the parental relation, and liberty, are not in 
themselves sinful ! For just so far as the law touched liberty 
at all, as well as the marriage relation, it contaminated it. It 
laid its foul hand upon tlie freeman, and degraded him into a 
slave. It laid its foul hand upon the husband, and clianged 
his love into brutality. It laid its foul hand upon the parent, 
and he forgot the father by becoming a master. We say then, 
with Mr. Blanchard, the laws are the basis, the bone and sinew, 
the flesh and blood, of slavery ; dissolve them, and slavery falls 
--natural right is untrammeled — and the thing " in itself is 
not sinful,"' because it is no more. ,' * 



424 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

We should deem ourselves unhappy in being a slave, but 
most of all would the bitter iron enter into our soul, to find 
ourself thrust through to the vitals with such sjiallow sophistry 
as this ! 

Mr. Rice presses Mr. B. upon the subject of the marriage 
relation, and gets an advantage of him. He loves to run into 
collateral discussion, he is acute, but never profound ; never ex- 
pansive. No man denies that the marriage relation is a natural 
relation ; its validity in the eyes of God and nature, consists 
in its purity and undying devotion, not, in its publicity. Its 
publicity and form of ceremonial, are subjects of human legis- 
lation, to ascertain the duties and legal responsibilities of the 
parties, and to prevent so far as we can by law and public 
opinion, the faciUties and consequent temptations to concubi- 
nage. To say that marriage may be abused, is not, logically 
speaking, true at all. Like truth, or charity, or wisdom, it is 
eternal. Pure love, chaste fidelity, may be departed from ; 
those professing marriage may turn traitors to it ; they may reap 
the bitter fruits of their crime ; the laws may fail to enforce the 
demands of the natural contract; but still the original type of a 
possible state of existence remains pure and unsullied, not in itself 
sinful. Not so of slavery. You may be forced by law to, or 
in your natural despotism of superior force, you may clothe 
and feed me, and be kind in all other respects, and teach me 
to read, and learn me to be religious, and allow me a full 
equivalent for my work. Yet, if I am a slave, if I may not in- 
dulge my own idea of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, 
then I am deeply injured, and, according to Mr. Rice's ad- 
mission, I am sutlering the greatest of criminal inflictions ! 

Mr. R. goes on to say, that as the laws of slavery have been 
variant in different countries, and in the same country at dif- 
ferent times — the relation between master and the slave remain- 
ing the same — the laws may be unjust, and the relation may 
not be in itself sinful ! Now if this is not arrant nonsense, then 
we are, indeed, " a madman and a fanatic !" Now a master 
being one existence, and the slave another, and both being men 
— what does the word master or slave mean, except relation 7 
The relation not being natural, but legal, is of course deter- 
mined by law, and nothing else. Let us apply a few grains 
of common sense ! 

The master in Russia may make the serf, sow, cut wood, or spin 



DEBATE ON SLAVERY. 425 

— yet he may not sell him from the ^oil ; the master in Kentucky 
may do all that the Russian may do ; and yet sell the slaves from 
off the soil, and separate families. Is there any sensible man 
who fails to see a degree of crime here greater than in Rus- 
sia '} And if he does, in what does it consist? Why of course 
in the legal relation. You may enact law after law, control- 
ling the absolute control of one man over another, till the veriest 
slave insensibly rises to the rank of a freeman — and as the last 
feather breaks the camel's back, so the last removal restores him 
to his legs ! How then can " the laws be unjust, and the rela- 
tion may not be in itself sinful .'" 

Again : " A master, a father, or a husband, may be cruel, but 
is the master obliged to treat his slave cruelly?" 

We answer yes ! He cannot cease to be cruel except by 
ceasing to be a master ! He " must not of necessity starve or 
abuse them !" But then by holding them absolutely to his will, 
he increases the chances of abuse, and his own imprudence 
whatever maybe the slave's prudence, is i\\G slave's starvation! 
Besides, as law makers, we are liable for all the abuses of slavery. 
If I vote for a law that Mr. Rice should violate with impunity 
the most chaste woman in Kentucky, I should hardly shield 
myself from the condemnation of mankind, because Mr. Rice, 
obeying a higher moral law, thought fit not to indulge in crime! 
For our part we have never indulged in denouncing slave trad- 
ers, as Mr. R. seems disposed to make them tlie scape-goats of 
slavery, because we see no difference in the eye of reason be- 
tween the slave trader and the man who stands by with his 
vote and his musket to allow the trader to do it with safety ! 
On the contrary, the man who holds the resisting victim is 
worse than the lavisher ! Because he aids and abets the dam- 
nable deed without temptation. Mr. R. is less guilty only be- 
cause he does reap advantage from the slave trade ! Why 
hypocritically denounce the slave trade yet refuse to pass laws 
for its abolition ? The cloak is too transparent to dupe the 
blind ! 

He could find many instances of abuse of the marriage and 
parental relation. A man murdered his wife and three children 
in Cincinnati ! Well, what is the remedy ? Punishment ! 

Is the slave trade punished ? No ! Again, if slavery did 
not exist could the slave trade be carried on ? If marriage did 
not exist, nevertheless, would not the murder of women increase 



426 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

instead of abate !? Are we never to have done with this shal- 
low sophistry ? Is it at all wonderful that Mr. B. icept^ in the 
great indignation which springs up in every pure and unsulhed 
soul at this repeated desecration of the marriage and filial re- 
lation ! 

Mr. R. says " the slave trader is looked upon by decent men 
in the slaveholding states with disgust." He will allow us to say 
that decent men in slaveholding States are sadly in the mino- 
rity^ or else his statement is false ! There have been two well 
known slave traders elected to the legislature from Fayette 
county, within the last few years ; and this is a common thing; 
there are several in the legislature now ! We are prepared to 
give names if called upon ! 

Mr. R. imputes the increase of the slave trade to al)olitionists, 
" they rivet the chains and aggravate every evil attending his 
condition !" " And upon those who provoke men rests in no 
small degree the responsibihty of increasing the sufferings of the 
slaves." We deny thefacts^ and we deny the conclusion ! Mr. 
Rice distinctly states in several places that the condition of the 
slave is improving. We say so too ; but we say that this im- 
provement is owing to the discussion of abolitionists ! For Mr. 
Rice will hardly be able to convince men that the slaveholders 
are such monsters as to be insensible to shame and general in- 
dignation ! It is true, as Mr. B. says, that amidst all the ame- 
lioration of the institutions of mankind, American slavery is 
now as it was in Rome, still crime, and unimproved, because it 
is crime ; and in crime the only reformation is total abandon- 
ment of the criminal action. The spirit of the slave laws is the 
same — the spirit of the master is the same— the condition of the 
slave is only a little better now, by compulsion, by the outward 
pressure of abolitionists, and the inward pressure of danger. 
The spirit of slaveholders is indeed provoked and Mr. R. very 
well explains what they would do, if they were secure of the 
power, and could shun the indignation of men. The discus- 
sion is not criminal. A robber takes my purse, and lets my 
person pass — the hue and cry is raised — and for fear I may tes- 
tify against him — he murders me ! Who is responsible for the 
murder ? The robber 1 or the indignant executors of law and 
justice? Is it better to let robbery go unpunished? — oris it 
better to denounce it and bring the murderer to justice, at the 
expense of a few innocent victims of his fear or revenge ? 



DEBATE ON SLAVERY. 427 

Clearly stop his robbery at all hazards ! " Partial evil is uni- 
versal good," says Pope. But here not even partial evil arises ; 
for Mr. Rice himself admits that the treatment of slaves has im- 
proved lately since the origin of abolitionism. Whilst we be- 
lieve that, as God lives or is just, slavery vinll fall under the 
searching discussion which is spreading everywhere throughout 
the world ! 

Again Mr. R. says, " The question before us is not whether 
it is right to treat slaves as mere chattels personal ?" Yes thai 
is the question ! Mr. B. has shown that such is the decision of 
the American courts. How does he get over the fact, reader ? 
He says a man ought to be excluded from the Church, who 
would treat a horse cruelly. "Yet it is not a sin to own a 
horse !" Let us see : a dog buries a bone ; it is not a sin to rob 
a dog of his bone ! Therefore it is not a sin to rob a man of 
his property. A squirrel lays up hickory nuts ; it is not a sin to 
rob a squirrel of his nuts. Ergo, it is not a sin to rob a man of 
his earnings ! Now in order to make the case parallel it must 
1)6 shown that the man is no more than a horse, a dog, or a 
scpiirrel ! that he has no memory — no sense of injury — ^no aspi- 
ration, but to fdl the belly and keep warm. Does Mr. R. con- 
tend that a man is no better than a beast ? Will our readers 
pardon us for thus trespassing upon their time and sense? 

" The question is not whether a great amount of sin is in fact 
committed in connexion with slaveholding." 

Do you think he does not come back to the parental VLnd con- 
jugal relations again ? The wickedness done in the last, when 
overt, is jrunished. The wickedness done in slavery, is legal- 
ized and goes unpunished by law, in this tvorld ! One may 
starve, rape, and murder one's slave and go unwhipt of justice. 
If we are caught starving, by the whites, we may get the full 
equivalent in money, if any one thinks proper to sue us, and 
sell the slave of another. If one rapes, it is nobody's business. 
If we murder, we have but to exclude white testimony. We 
said years ago that we knew of five murders of slaves, and not 
a single punishment. If ever a master was hung for murder- 
ing a slave in any portion of the world for the last six thousand 
years, we never heard of it. " But the sin is not in the rela- 
tion ! ! !•' 

"Nor is the question before- us whether slavery is an evil '? It 
is an evil.''' " I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word." 



428 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

Now if slavery is an evil, here is an end of the matter. Is not 
sophism dead, and absurdity buried ? Not at all ! May not a 
thing be evil in itself, (for mark the word ^'■slavery'''' is the "eiu7" 
— not the relation— not the abuse, not the laws of its existence 
^'■slavery is an eviF) — and yet not be sinful in itself? Now if 
slavery be the cause of evil, it is an agent^ and is sinful. But 
if slavery be the effect^ which is an evil, the master is sinful. 
And as slavery is not of itself an entity, an existence, inde- 
pendent of man, but is a modification or sequence of his acts, it 
is a voluntary evil on the master's part ; and if it is a voluntary 
evil., whether moral or physical, it is sinful ! And from this 
conclusion when Mr. Rice once admits slavery to be an evil, he 
cannot escape ; we have him oji the hip ! If I break my arm 
by accident, it is evil, but no sin; but if I voluntarily break 
my arm it is a sin and an evil. The will to do, whether it be 
to cause evil to the body or to the soul, is si7i. And as slavery 
cannot be conceived as existing without the will " slavery is the 
being unconditionally subject to the will of another," and 
slavery is an evil — then slavery is a voluntary evil, and Mr. 
Rice stands pinioned by his own showing. 

Mr. R. having admitted slavery to be an evil, feels of course 
bound to do something, but is " not willing to upturn the foun- 
dation of society in order to overturn it." Indeed ! In what 
country has it been found necessary to upturn the foundation 
of society to overthrow slavery ? All the ancient Republics 
perished because of slavery ! The Italian Republics never be- 
gan to spring up from anarchy, and robl)ery, and desolation, till 
slavery perished. England abolished slavery ; and yet she 
stands. France and other nations ; and yet they stand. St. 
Domingo w^ould not overthrow it, and she fell ! Thirteen of 
these states overturned it and yet they stand. All America but 
Brazil and the American Union have overturned it, yet they 
stand ! Is there an instance in history where the overthrow of 
slavery overthrew the nation ? No, not one ! What are you 
afraid of, Mr. Rice? Afraid of the counsel of the wise? They 
warn you to act. Afraid of History ? She proclaims in trum- 
pet tones — ^act! Afraid of virtue? She beseeches you, by all 
her inviting loveliness — to act ! Afraid of justice ? She de- 
mands it — act ! Afraid of God ? He commands you, as you 
have a soul to be saved — act ! 

But " he will not do evil that good may come ! " No ! But 



DEBATE ON SLAVERY. 429 

he does evil that evil may come ! — evil — -the one and undying 
evil ! Nothing but evil ! No, Mr. Rice, don't do evil, but have 
faith in the human soul, in justice, in mercy, in man, in God : 
do right though the heavens fall ! 

" The question does not relate to the duty or policy of Ken- 
tucky, or any other state, concerning slavery." " The duty of 
the state is one thing: the duty of individuals quite another.'" 
We deny the proposition utterly : the duty of individuals and 
of the state are " one and inseparable, now and for ever." We 
call for proof ! 

Lastly. " We are not to discuss the merits of any system of 
slacery^ Roman, Spanish, English, or American." Let Mr. R. 
congratulate himself! Neither does he understand what is 
meant by a system of slavery ! We will do for him what he 
cannot do for himself : we will attempt to tell him what a system 
of slavery is. If I come upon Mr. R. in a free country, or state of 
nature, and by my own power reduce him to slavery contiary to 
law, or natural right, that is simply slavery. But if the govern- 
ment take it up, and stand by me with the law and the musket, 
and enable me and others to enslave him and others, with im- 
punity—that is a system of slavery. The first seems to be bad 
enough — the second is as bad as anything can be ! No doubt 
Mr. Rice hates to look it in the face ! 

Mr. Rice then comes to the question as stated in the caption. 
And here for the present we leave him. 



LEXINGTON, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8. 

The True American. 

When we first proposed publishing this journal, we had pro- 
mised coadjutors, and an engaged editor^ as our prospectus set 
forth. The reasons which caused these men to desert us, if 
satisfactory to themselves, are so to us ! Duties and responsi- 
bilities have thus, however, been imposed upon us, which in the 
beginning we did not anticipate ; and the conducting of a news- 
paper is neither suited to our early habits, our tastes, nor our 



430 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

necessities. We do not, however, underrate the post of editor 
of an enhghtened and virtue-teaching journal. If to do good 
is honorable, then few positions can be more respectable than 
this. But still the daily and crude spreading of one's thoughts 
before men, prevents that concentrated utterance, which only- 
can place the author among those, who are to live in the far 
future. If fame were our sole goddess, we should raise some 
other banner ; but there is a higher heaven even than that 
where glory enthrones herself To Trutlt immortal have we 
sworn undying allegiance. Wherever she leads, we follow. 

The True American is devoted to the highest interests of 
Kentucky ; but not confined to state action only. In the 
national government is a higher ground, w^hich must determine 
our ultimate destiny. The title of our paper, then, is designed 
to embody the spirit of the whole movement. The cause of 
liberty is expansive — American : and the American, to fulfil his 
high destiny among men, nmst be True. 

The extraordinary success of this paper, proves that not in 
vain is the appeal to the nobler passions of the human heart, 
the liigher aspirations of the soul. The response has come 
back in encouraging tones, from our own "dark and bloody 
ground " — from the states of the free, and from the far-ofT lands 
of century-seated tyianny. Thanks, fellow-men, that you have 
stood by us and the cause ! 

We have made suitable arrangements to make this one of the 
best journals in the Union. We to-day improve its typographical 
features ; and we trust, hereafter, its spirit will be consonant 
with its incarnation. 

Since our reduction of the price to non-slaveholders, small 
farmers, and mechanics in slave states, our circulation has 
rapidly increased, at ho?ne as Avell as abroad. We begin to 
prove to conceited and vindictive detractors from our political 
sagacity, that in our appeal to those who are to gain by freedom, 
the ivhile laborers of America, as well as the black, we are not 
a " madman" if " a fanatic." 

The New Hampshire victory marks the beginning of progress ! 
and the Texas usurpation shall be death to slavery, instead of 
its triumph ! 

In the wrongs which we have borne at the hands of the slave 
power, you have our hostages, that we shall be true to the cause 
of human freedom. Time will prove, if we are not equal to 



CROW-FOOT SKETCHES. 431 

the occasion, that at least we were not over sensitive in caUing 
for our country's reformation, nor bUnd to the coming revohition ; 
which must be safe and glorious for our country and mankind, 
because based upon truth and justice, and nature's law. 



Crow-Foot Sketches. 

New York, including Brooklyn and the suburbs, contains 
about four hundred and fifty thousand people. She has the first 
harbor in America ; and being the entrepot of the western con- 
tinent, she must grow with the widening prosperity and 
development of our extraordinary people. The time is not dis- 
tant when she will be, what London now is, the commercial 
emporium of the world. The United States is already the 
second commercial power on earth ; and if the Union lasts, she 
will soon reign the unrivalled mistress of commerce ; and become 
the first nation on the globe, in power, numbers, and civilization. 
^ew York city will be to America, what America is to other 
nations ; and if she shall not be, as the Parisians now claim, 
the " brain," she will be the heart of mankind. Already she 
gives earnest of coming glory. It is the only city in the Union 
which excites in one an idea of the sublime, arising from im- 
mensity and mystery. A forest of ships surrounds her as a 
wall, and all tongues of the earth are heard in mingled murmurs 
within her massive masses of palaces and hovels. 

Broadway is a magnificent street, and worthy of the magnilo- 
quent connnendations of the children of Gotham. 

The Battery, the Bowling Green, the Park, the breadth of the 
way, the churches, the walks, the founts of water, the old and 
dusky, the splendidly new buildings, of every hue and form, 
make Broadway a most picturesque and agreeable place. 

Her fioods of moving men and women of all climes and hues, 
and fashions of habiliment, faces, fortunes, and hopes, increase 
the interest. Everything is colossal : her palaces, her prisons, 
her water-works, her omnibuses, her masses of people— all indi- 
cate a giant city. 

The works of man are greatly prominent here : man himself 
is lost in his aggregate manifestation. All the inhabitants of 
many a self-elated village might repose within the walls of the 



432 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

Astor House ; and governors, members of Congress, bishops, 
generals, great scholars, sprigs of European nobihty, and Messrs. 
Smith and Brown, sit down to the same table, in unnoted indi- 
viduality ; and the head waiter is as much observed as the 
"observed of all observers!" Few men or women create a 
sensation in New York. We have even seen Mr. Webster 
sit down to table, and not a fork or knife was seen to rest from 
its labors. 

When I was in New York, a college boy, I felt all the solitude 
of our forest wild, and longed for the woods, and the far-reaching 
prairie, that I might feel my individuality once more. I now 
welcomed her solitudes of men, that I might be alone to ray 
own thoughts and acts, shielded from the annoying inquisitive- 
ness of the ••'great unwashed." 

When one looks upon the mass of human beings here con- 
gregated, his first suggestion is, how do all these live ? And 
this question is not answered till the immense holds of her forest 
shipping are seen to disgorge the products and manufactures of 
a great portion of the globe. 

New York turns her eyes towards the East, and regards all 
America as provincial. Except when some exciting topic is 
up at Washington, the eyes of all the Union are upon her. Her 
journals begin to give tone to the politics of the country — her 
fashions are those of the republic — ^her moneyed and commercial 
powers are spread throughout the land. She begins to be felt ; 
and the time is not far distant, when she will be, in America, 
what Paris is in Europe. But enough of her totality. 

The houses in New York are more magnificent than those 
in the Quaker city. The dwellings more palace-like, of more 
variety of form, and of better material : red sand stone, and 
granite, being more largely used than red brick. The equipages 
are more stylish, and the dresses and furniture more costly, if 
not more tasteful. The best specimens of statues, and paint- 
ings, which I saw, were in private houses, and the Academy 
of Design had only casts of plaster, with no marbles. 

The taste for statues seems to be on the increase in New 
York, as well as elsewhere in America ; and her great wealth 
allows her to gratify her taste. At P.'s and Gen. T.'s I saw 
some beautiful specimens of the divine art. Mr. and Mrs. 
Kean, late Miss Ellen Tree, were playing at the Park Theatre 
to crowded and fashionable houses. The women were dressed 



CROW-FOOT SKETCHES. 433 

as for balls, and "loomed up" in great profusion of silks and 
diamonds. Their eyes fell upon one with electric sympathy, 
with souls warmed by the Mesmeric influence, of full and 
rounded persons, rose-stained arms, and peach-blossom'd cheeks ! 
Heaven forgive them for my sin of thought ! The music of 
the orchestra was very fine, and the scenic representations un- 
equalled, it is said, in our land. 

Mrs. Kean, whom we saw also in Ion, now playing the 
Q,ueen in Richard the Third, met very well our idea of a fin- 
ished actress. Her person and features, at first common and 
uninteresting, reflect the beauties of a cultivated mind, and an 
impassioned soul, and become at length quite interesting. Mr. 
Kean's impersonation of a hunch-backed Richard, is admira- 
ble. He looks, and conceives, and acts the King well, in all his 
dark sinuosities in council^ and bold courage in action, but in- 
jures the effect by his r-r-rolling enunciation ! I never could 
conceive how a really sensible man could fall into this cold 
shower-bath of all real passion. How would a man be received 
by the woman of his love, if he was to pour out his soid in 
this wise ? " t-r-uest, dca-r-est love of my 1-i-f-e !" Pshaw ! 

Declaim as we may against the theatre, it cannot be denied 
that it is a most captivating amusement. The glorious, the 
intellectual, the ideal, the scnsiud, arc combined in such delici- 
ous perfection and heightened power, that we fear poor hu- 
manity cannot resist the temptation to seek them out here ! 
But still my frank judgment demands of me to say, that I can- 
not look upon the drama, in theatrical impersonation, as any 
thing else than the most seductive enemy of womanly purity, 
and heroic manlv virtue ! 



LEXINGTON, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15. 

Rice and Blanciiard's Debate on Slavery. 

(Continued Review.) 

Nature purges herself of her violated laws, and the time has 
come for the stern application of the means. Slaverv demands 
28 



434 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

not a prosecutor but an executioner. If the injuries we have 
received at its hands fit us for the task, we arc content to 
yield to the demands of fate. If we shall be found an uncom- 
promising enemy of slavery ; if our faculties, whatever they 
are, are sharpened to the searching out of its dark hiding 
places, to the sparing of neither church nor state, nor hoary 
custom — nor of the sophistry, cant, or hypocrisy which labors 
to shield it — let slaveholders thank themselves for maturing us 
in the school of their own wiles, for the determination which 
leads us on in this eternal war ! 

Against Mr. Rice we have not the least ill feeling. To be 
sure, we are roused at wrong ; but then again, we know that 
his own conscience sits as a stern vindicator of Heaven's right, 
and his punishment is inevitable. If at times, then, we use 
words of indignation, it is in view of the injustice of the whole 
system of American slavery, which looms up in all its horrors, 
and makes us strike unconsciously through him at the world's 
enemy. 

Mr. Rice we regard as a third or fourth rate man in general 
debate ; as a moralist, far inferior to Fuller, and infinitely be- 
hind Wayland. When we laboriously pursue him, then, 
through this large volume, it is because he sums up the vul- 
gar, current vindications of slavery ; and we find it convenient 
to answer them here. 

Mr. Rice is not a bad man. No doubt he prefers doing good 
to sustaining evil. He is a preacher of the doctrines of Jesus 
Christ. But he is not of the temperament of Paul ; and has 
not the spirit of a martyr. It would rejoice his inmost soul, 
unquestionably, to see slavery fall. He feels it to be an " evil, 
a sin, an incubus," upon the spirit of his church, and the diffu- 
sion and practice of religious truth ; but, to attack it, would 
send him, as he thinks, like "a squirrel with the wind in his 
tail, over the Ohio !" Yet the great world is attacking slave- 
ry. If it be proved damnable, the church South stands in the 
same category. What, therefore, is to be done? They must 
defend themselves, lest a white cravat become disreputable, and 
the boys in the streets hoot at a black gown ! This is Mr. 
Rice's position ; it is the position of a great number of southern 
Christians. We pity them from our soul ! They stand the un- 
willing watch-dogs over a doomed flock ! We would, but can- 
not spare them. The same impulse which makes us pity 



DEBATE ON SLAVERY. 435 

them, demands of us the sacrifice. Natm"e, and nature's God 
call for redress. The cry of millions rings unceasingly in our 
ears, and the hand of destiny is upon us ! We speak not in 
the impulse of a wild patriotism ; we, and those who act with 
us, are not special, but general, yet the no less inevitable agents 
of Providence. The time in the history of the world for the 
overthrow of slavery is come ; and no power on earth or in 
Heaven can stay if, for God, in the very necessity of his Being, 
has willed it ! 

Mr. Rice, having, by nine stated propositions, narrowed the 
discussion, giving them up as lost to him, and incapable of de- 
fence, proceeds to state what is the question. " It is stated by 
the Rev. Thomas E. Thomas, a prominent abohtionist, in the 
following language : ' That question now in process of investi- 
gation among American churches, is this, and no other : Are 
professed Christians in our respective connexions, who hold 
their fellow-men as slaves, thereby guilty of a sin, which de- 
mands the cognizance of the church ; and after due admoni- 
tion, the application of discipline?' In order to get at slave- 
holding, he must have a definition. Well, what is it? He 
gives Paley : Slavery is ' an obligation on the part of the slave 
to labor for the master without consent or contract.' " Now, 
Mr. R. is logician enough to know that this definition is a pe^i- 
tio p7'incipii, a begging of the question. Mr. Blanchard very 
truly objects to it, as a definition, becaiise it is too general, in- 
cluding persons who are not slaves. For instance, children 
under majority, are precisely included. The definition is false 
in all the respects of a definition. It includes persons not 
slaves ; it creates conditions not essential to slavery ; and is 
untrue in its main assumption. The condition, an "obliga- 
tion," as Paley observes, arises from crime, captivity, and death ; 
but slavery exists in America when it is not pretended that 
crime, captivity, or debt exists. 

This definition makes an essential condition, which is false. 
The main assumption, that slavery is an " obligation," is false, 
by the final clause, "without consent or contract." Now, in all 
cases of forfeiture of libert}' by debt and crime, there is consent. 
And therefore, the definition clashes in itself; and is false in the 
main part. Captivity is not a ground of slavery, as all noio ad- 
mit^ and therefore has nothing to do with it. We are not first- 
rate at definitions, but we can beat Paley : thus, " Slavery is 



436 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

the WANT of obligation on the part of the slave, forced to labor 
for the master without consent or contract ! " We throw out 
this as our definition of slavery. Mr. Rice is welcome to its 
conclusions. 

Yet this is not a perfect definition of slavery ; for, notwith- 
standing Mr. Rice's question, " is any thing included in slave- 
holding except the claim of one man to the services of another?" 
a woman is frequently held in slavery only to answer the crimi- 
nal lusts of the master ! 

We attempt, therefore, an improvement upon our definition : 
" Slavery is the want of obligation on the part of the slave, to 
be subject, yet, by force, or law, or both, made subject, to the 
will of the master, without consent or contract." Mr. Rice 
may take our definition, or give us a better. His definition is 
" rich." " By slaveholding, then, I understand, the claim of the 
master to the services of the slave, with the corresponding obliga- 
tion on the part of the master, to treat the slave kindly, and to 
provide him with abundant food and raiment during life, and 
with religious instruction !" Page 33. Do we place Mr. Rice 
too low, when we call him a third or fourth rate mind ? Let us 
paraphrase his definition ; we can make it more true without 
departing from its form, thus : " By slave-holding, then, 1 un- 
derstand, the claim of the master to the chastity of the slave, 
with coi^responding- obligation on the part of the master, to 
treat the slave kindly, and to provide her with abundant food, 
and raiment during life, and with religious instruction !" We 
then ask, in his own language, " Are there any circumstances 
which can justify such a claim? or is the claim in itself sinful, 
and the relation founded on it a sinful relation ? " Yet this is 
the real relation of every slave woman in America, and not a 
law in a single state interposes the least restraint ! And in 
Kentucky Mr. Rice and myself are bound to stand by with the 
musket^ and perfect the wishes of the ravisher ! For, if the 
slave resist, the master may murder her ; if she call upon her 
husband, or sister, or brother, or mother, or son, to help, the 
master may call upon us to come to the rescue ! And, because 
we cry out against this damnable complexity of crime, intones 
not altogether measured and musical to the ear of the criminal, 
we are " rash and imprudent," and Mr. Rice is not very sure, 
indeed he rather thinks, we deserve to be murdered ! 

Mr. Rice then says : "Let it be distinctly understood, that if 



DEBATE ON SLAVERY. 437 

slave-holding is in itself sinful, it is sinful under all circum- 
stances, and must be immediately abandoned, without regard 
to circumstances." In our review, in a previous number of this 
paper, we proved slavery sinful by Mr. R.'s own admission. 
He is therefore, by his own showing, bound to immediate eman- 
cipation ! He shall not escape condemnation. Now we do not 
assent to the rule, that a thing is right or wrong, independent 
of circumstances. On the contrary, circumstances and motives 
influence, more or less, all human acts, and determine, to a 
great extent, their guilt, or goodness. For instance: some 
whites travelling in Africa ; one of the servants took an Afri- 
can's wood by force. The injured man rallied his party, and 
was coming down to kill the whole company. When the 
whites saw the Africans coming, they flogged the servant most 
unmercifully^ which at length appeased the enemy. Now, the 
taking a few chunks of wood from a log, at other times and 
places, would have hardly attracted notice ; yet, here it was 
just to punish him severely : nothing less would have saved 
life ! 

Now we will not say, that there is no circumstance which 
would justify a man in holding a slave. But we know what 
we say, when we declare, that we never have known a case in 
Kentucky, where Mr. Rice can legitimately act, where every 
moment of slaveholding was not sinful ! 

We say, that there is not the least danger in immediate 
emancipation in Kentucky. Reasoning a priori, will a man 
murder you because you are his friend? because you are just? 
because you do a godlike action ? because you are merciful ? No ! 
Has history proved it dangerous to emancipate ? On the contrary, 
emancipation has always, without a single exception, been safe. 
How dare Mr. Rice to assume any such false sequence, as that 
emancipation was dangerous ? How does he avoid the conclusion 
in reality? Not because it is unsafe, but because it would run 
counter to his prejudices ; " those. states are bound to liberate all 
their slaves, and grant them the right to vote, and to fill any office 
within the gift of the people." Well, does he deny the right of 
the last proposition ? Not at all ! He reproaches Mr. Blan- 
chard very justly for not carrying it out in Ohio. So that it is 
plain that Mr. Rice does not search for truth, but caters to the 
base prejudices of his audience for temporary victory ! 

Now, whether the African should be allowed to vote or not. 



438 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

is not at all material to the question, " Whether slavery is in 
itself sinful ? " And if they were to remain among us till 
doomsday, without the power of voting or filling office, we main- 
tain that slavery is equally sinful. What sort of religion or mo- 
rality is that, which says to a man, because you will not be en- 
tirely virtuous, therefore it is no use to leave off murder or rob- 
bery ; because you lie, you may steal ! because you keep a 
mistress, you may therefore murder your wife, or sell your coun- 
try for gold ? Does not every man see tlie absurdity of such 
arguments ? In Massachusetts and New York, and some other 
states, Africans vote ; yet New York and Massachusetts dare 
look decent men in the face, and call upon the name of the 
living God ! 

Color may be a very good reason for a negro pew in the 
church of Christ, for no doubt there will be a negro pew also in 
heaven ! But when Mr. Rice comes into the arena of world- 
wide morality, he must lay aside his bigotry ! Boyer and family 
were entertained by the royal family of France, upon terms of 
social equality ; and Alexander Dumas, a half-blood, is one of 
the most sought after aristocrats in Paris ; whilst even in New 
Orleans, a very reputable man is said to have committed per- 
jury in order to indulge in tlie delicacies of legal amalgama- 
tion ! So that Mr. Rice must take care else he will have the 
chivalry on his back — something harder to put up with than a 
black coat ! Why then do we not advocate immediate emanci- 
pation? We do. We practise our own teaching. And having 
given our advice and example, we say to weak human nature, 
if you won't do all the right, let us as a state, agree to a scheme, 
which will finally effect the whole right. We prefer a half loaf 
to no bread. We prefer freedom in thirty years, to slavery for ever ! 
If the blacks are unfit for freedom now, the sooner we cease to 
cause their unfitness, the sooner it will cease ! The sooner they 
are free, the sooner they will be enlightened ; the sooner 
they are enlightened, the sooner will they be capable of self- 
government. 

We are free to confess that slavery cannot be abolished 
without some temporary ills, some self-sacrifice, some penal con- 
sequences. To maintain the contrary, would be to maintain 
that it was no violation of nature's laws, which have ever a 
penalty. The taking medicine is an evil, but it saves from 
death ! If there were no violation of moral or physical laws, 



DEBATE ON SLAVERY. 439 

there were no pain, no disease, and consequently no need of a 
remedy ! Slavery is a deadly disease: it must be cured, or the 
patient dies ! There is no other alternative. We are now suffering 
its way-side calamities — all bad enough — but its catastrophe is 
as certain as it is insufferable and disastrous. 

Mr. Rice opposes abolitionism, " not because it tends to abolish 
slavery, but because it tends to perpetuate slavery, and to aggra- 
vate its evils." Mr. Rice, this is love's labor lost ! The slaveholders 
will not thank you for your pains ! And he is confirmed in his 
belief by men in the free states. Yes, many men in the free 
states are slave-traders, cotton planters, and sleeping partners 
of slave plantations and slaves ! Many are indirectly interested 
in slavery. Many are inately base ; and some few are blinded 
by the calumnies of slaveholders and their parasites ! If the 
Union shall be dissolved, it will not come of abolitionism, but 
of slavery. The crime is of slavery, and slavery will reap its 
bitter fruits. 

In reply to the argument, that slavery mars the marriage tie, 
and makes children illegitimate, Mr. Rice denies, on the ground 
that marriage exists of God, and not of man. True, marriage 
is literally of the soul, and not of the municipal law. But 
when slavery usurps a higher power than that of the Bible, 
and separates by its will whom God has joined together, does it 
not stand responsible for the real outrage to the person and the 
spirit of the slave by taking the wife from the nuptial bed, and 
forcing her to the master's bed of lust? And for the guilt of 
soul, when the separated couples are thus tempted by the strong 
impulses of nature, to form new alliances, whilst the old parties 
are yet ali\^? Mr. Rice may say that Christians need not do 
all the law allo\vs them to do. True, but then they are re- 
sponsible by their voice and their practice, for all the crimes 
which are perpetrated by the facilities and injinnities of " this 
relation^ 

Slave children are neither legitimate nor illegitimate : because 
the law does not take cognizance of the relation of marriage in 
blacks at all. But so far as marriage is a protection to children, 
by defining their rights, it is all lost to slave children. Neither 
the father nor the mother haslhc care of the child, even when 
known to be their joint issue. And whilst the parents may be Chris- 
tians, the master may be an infidel ; and whilst the parents 
may inculcate chastity the master may play the Jesuitical 



440 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

seducer, or the unrestrained violator of female purity ! So that 
Mr. Rice must give up Christian morality or yield up slavery: 
for they are as far apart as virtue and vice ! As to the names 
of slaves, it is a small matter. True, masters are not in the 
habit of naming them just as they please ; where there are 
causes for a different course — then the course is different ! For 
instance, if a mother wishes to name a child after a friend or a 
relation, and calls him Joe, Joe will be the name, unless there 
is another Joe on the same place, black or white ; then the child 
must be called something else. If the name is too long for 
speedy calling, it is knocked down to something sliort. This is 
tyranny in small tilings. Slavery is nothing else. 

Mr. R. then assumes the offensive. "My first argument is 
founded upon the admitted fact, that the great principles of mo- 
rality are written upon the human heart, and when presented 
do commend themselves to the understandings and the consciences 
of all men, unless we except the most degraded."' "But the 
doctrine that slaveholding is in itself sinful, has not thus com- 
mended itself to the great mass, even of the wise and good. 
Therefore it is not true." We thank thee ! Yes, the great 
principles of morality do commend themselves to the consciences 
and convictions of men ; and we assert boldly, that slaveiy does 
so present itself as sinful. At the time of the revolution, 
when our own difficulties taught us, in sincerity, to examine our 
hearts, the conviction was unanimous, that all men are created 
free and equal, and that man cannot hold property in man. 
We heard then nothing of the contemptible plea that slavery is 
not " in itself sinfuW It was only when we grew strong in 
physical force, and abandoned, and " most degraded," that we 
began to preach this heresy of conscience. Yes, slaveholding 
does present itself to our conscience as the greatest of crimes. 
For whilst we have violated, and continue to violate, many of 
the great precepts of Christianity and conscience, we felt that slave- 
holding was too bare-faced, and impudently criminal, for a rea- 
sonable share of self-respect ; and therefore we abandoned it ! 
Yes, we know some of the secrets of the prison-house, and we 
say, in all candor, that we never, till within a few years, heard 
of a man who believed, or pretended to believe, that slavery 
was right. We would to-morrow submit the question to the men 
of the 18th, who were murderers in heart, and believe that not 



DEBATE ON SLAVERY. 441 

five men of all (hose thousands who were "so degraded," would 
conscientiously deny that slavery is wrong — sinfully wrong. 

So that Mr. Rice is caught in his own trap ! We know not 
w^hat the Jews did ; whom the God of the universe has accepted, 
and whom he has rejected, no man knows, or can know. But 
if a slaveholder can enter the kingdom of heaven, let the vilest 
sinner take courage : for there is no deed so damnable but that 
its penalties may be shirked ! We speak of wilful perpetualist 
slaveholders ! For we are willing to admit that there are many 
good men who are slaveholders. For who is without sin? 
There is every grade of Christianity, from the most benevolent 
)naster, denying himself the powers of the law, to him who 
goes the full length of its dark chain ! 

Mr. R.'s second ground is : " There never was and never can be, 
a man, or class of men, heretical on one fundamental point of faith, 
morals, and yet sound on all the other doctrines of the Bible, 
and on all other important principles of morality." But slave- 
holders are sound on all other parts of morality ; and of conse- 
quence slaveholding cannot be a sin. That is the sum of the 
argument. 

Now, this is almost too deep in theology for us of the world. 
Yet we venture to deny the predicate and the conclusion. 
Catholics hold that Protestants are vitally WTong on many lead- 
ing or " fundamental points of faith and morals." Yet there 
are as many good Christians and virtuous Catholics, as Protes- 
tants. And vice versa. We are astonisiied that Mr. Rice should 
have ventured upon so broad an assertion, knowing the great 
number of religious sects, from the Trinitarians to the Unita- 
rians ; many, in all of which sects, we trust, he is willing to 
admit, are good and moral men. 

But if we mend Mr. Rice's proposition, by excluding faith, 
and putting simply great or fundamental points of morals: 
still it is by no means a logical argument. Because it assumes 
tiiat slaveholding Christians are as good men in other respects 
as non-slaveholding Christians, ifhich is denied. But yet, if 
we allow his assumption, still is the argument inconclusive ; 
because slavery is so mixed up with law and government, and 
the old Jewish customs, that the clearest minds, though they 
feel something is wrong — something " evil " — are not capable of 
saying where it is, or what it is. And in illustration of this 
fact, we might produce many whole nations by law violating 



442 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

cardinal principles of morality. Even Mr. Rice is so absurd as 
to assert, that the moral obligations of the state are different 
from those of the individuals of it ! 

The dogged pertinacity with which Mr. Rice repeats these 
propositions, throughout his subsequent speeclies, is truly aston- 
ishing, and proves that he is either a very dull man, or presumes 
much upon the gross stupidity of his audience. 

Since Mr. Rice is so reliant upon natural instincts and con- 
sciousness, for the discernment of great principles of morals, 
we presume that he would have some faith in the instinctive 
perceptions of slaves to find out who were their true friends. If 
so, we venture to say of the three millions of American slaves, 
if all had heard this debate, not one would have concluded that 
Mr. Rice was their friend at all— far less, a better friend than 
Mr. Blanchard. And if he is indeed a better friend of the slave 
than abohtionists, then may the Afiicans cry out with undying 
energy, " Save us — save us, from our friends ! " As to runaway 
slaves never hearing the Gospel in Canada, if Mr. Rice rightly 
reads it, we venture that not a single African will ever grieve 
himself to death, if he never hears the gospel, in the tide of 
times ! 

Having gone through his first speech, we shall reserve for 
another paper the continuation of this review. 



LEXINGTON, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 22. 

Slaveholding Madness and Fanaticism. 

We call the attention of our readers to Mr. S. M.'s letter. It 
proves to what excess the human mind may reach in a bad 
cause ! 

This man is surprised to see us " fighting against God " in 
attempting emancipation ! Does not he know that thirteen 
states of this Union are free of slaves? Have they fought 
successfully against God ? The majority of civilized nations 
have abolished slavery. Have they fought successfully against 
God? 



MADNESS AND FANATICISM. 443 

M. contends, that God cursed the sons of Canaan, and put a 
black mark upon them, that the world should know that whom- 
soever the Lord curses, he will curse ! What arrant nonsense 
is this ? Have not a majority of the slaves in the world been 
white? Where, then, is the mark of the curse? Are there not 
many colors — every shade, from white to black, and are not all, 
yes, every one, enslaved 1 How then can we know the accursed ? 
The exhortation to servants, or slaves, to be obedient to their 
masters, is similar to the injunction to " be subject to the powers 
that be." Will any sane man, therefore, submit to all iniquities 
and oppressions of government, under this command? Was 
our revolution criminal? The spirit of the rule only must be 
kept in view. Well, if God wills slavery, according to M., till 
he thinks proper to change it. who can say but that he is now 
connnencing the great work ? Let M. take care lest he resist 
the will of God at his own hazard ! 

Such doctrines as are held in this letter, and taught by learned 
divines, make God out the most merciless of tyrants, and fill 
our madhouses with miserable lunatics ! : . . 

Richmond, Ky., April 2d, 1846. 
Mr. C. M. Clay— Sir : 

You surprise me to see you fighting against God ; or do you 
expect to bless those whom God curses ; or do you intend to 
alter or abolish the decrees of God at your will ? When the old 
servant of God cursed his son Canaan, and told him that a ser- 
vant of servants he should be to his brethren, are you so pre- 
sumptuous as not to be willing for the Lord's will to be done on 
earth as it is in heaven ? Why, sir, he has put a black mark 
upon them, that all the world should know, that whomsoever 
the Lord blesses he will bless, and whomsoever the Lord curses 
he will curse. And it is clear and plain that the Lord sanctions 
slavery, for when he came upon the earth and found them slaves, 
he never forbade it, but told the servants to be subject to their 
masters in all things. Now, sir, it appears clear and plain that 
God intends them to be slaves, until he changes or alters his 
decrees. Let any man deny it, if he pleases ; it will be at his 
own hazard. 

S. M. 



444 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 



Rice and Blanchard's Debate on Slavery. 

CONTINUED REVIEW. 

In following Mr. Rice, we shall frequently use Mr. Blanchard's 
arguments as well as our own. We do not Hatter ourself that 
we can improve upon his refutation, but we may vary the mode, 
and thus reach various minds. 

Mr. Rice attempts to avoid the conclusions of abolitionism 
by putting the extreme case, that the slave has a right to regain 
his liberty by flight or force. Now we never shrink from con- 
clusions which follow upon justice and right. We say the slave 
has the same revolutionary ultimatum that all other men have 
— the same that our fathers of 1776 had. But we know it 
would not be expedient for the American slave to resort to the 
ultima ratio Regum. He would be over-matched ; and the 
consequences would be disastrous to white and black. As a 
member of a slave state, bound up in its welfare, and identified 
in interest with the whites, we should not hesitate to resist a 
slave insurrection. Though we are free to confess, that were 
we a member of a free state, with our family and relatives and 
friends, and clear of the United States Constitution, we should 
not feel ourselves bound to fight the battles of the oppressor. 
This argument of Mr. R.'s illustrates the fable of the ox, the 
farmer, and the lawyer. When Mr. Rice's ancestors were gored 
in the cause of liberty and self-government, we heard nothing 
of this shuddering at the horrid crime of self-vindication ! 
This is not a pleasant subject to us. It is one which we have 
ever avoided, but since Mr. R. has voluntarily put it in print, 
we have answered it fully, as we do not intend to slur any of 
his arguments, least of all those which we deem most powerful ! 

Mr, R. denies that the Bible authorizes physical resistance to 
tyranny ; we think differently, and there's an end of it. There 
is not, and never has been, a nation on earth that does not act 
upon the principle of self-defence. And if any tyranny under 
heaven warrants resistance, the American slave system is the 
thing ! If Mr. Rice is right, then were W^ashington, and Madi- 
son, and Adams, and Franklin, and Jefferson, and their com- 
peers, murderers, and, by his construction of Christianity, the 
present recipients of eternal damnation ; for they died covered 



DEBATE ON SLAVERY. 445 

with blood, and with consciences glorying in their perpetrations. 
We do not agree with Mr. B. that the duty of aboHtionists 
ceases before the black is entitled to political equahty. On the 
contrary, we must either yield up the republican theory, that a 
majority, under constitutional restrictions, must rule, or we must 
recognise the only other alternative, that the bayonet is the only 
proper source of power. Now, since Mr. Rice denies the latter 
as Christian, will he be so kind in his great wisdom as to give 
us a substitute for the first ? For, however much he may use 
the Greek and Hebrew, to gull his followers, the world will 
hardly be held in check by cant, prestiges, and syllogisms. As 
to this question about naturalization, it may be summed up in 
a few words. Every man, as soon as he becomes a bona fide 
inhabitant of a country for life, should have a right to assist in 
the govermnent of the country. Aliens and denizens, not being 
compelled to fight or pay taxes, should not be allowed to vote. 
This may seem radical ground ; but it is right and, therefore, 
safe. It is only hoary error and usurpation, in church or state, 
which fear first principles, and their stern application. 

We content ourselves with stating these collateral questions 
in a concise manner, as a book would not be too much for their 
full discussion. 

Mr. R. squirms whenever slavejy practically is held up to 
view. He cries incessantly for abstraction ; when he can't get 
that, he goes back to his favorite marriage and parental relation ! 
Why this nonsense ? It is just as good a plea to cry out against 
God for giving us existence because we may be murdered ! 
Existence, marriage, and children, are good things, but not free 
from the abuses of bad men. Slavery is not good even when 
free from abuse. Yes, in its most simple form, " slavery in 
itself," to us, is the sum of all evils, for you may take away 
marriage, and parents, and even existence, but leave us, while 
life does last, our liberty ! 

But give Mr. R. the full benefit of his Hindoo marriage, and 
we would say, sooner than the widow should be put to death 
on the decease of her husband, let marriage perish from the 
face of the earth ! So of slavery, sooner than have it, with its 
ever attendant abuses, let it perish ! How, then, has his shallow 
sophistry advanced him ? 

Nothing is more true than that a man may swallow a camel 
and strain at a gnat. Mr. R. admits that " speculating" in hu- 



446 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

man beings is damnable. Let us see. A comes upon me and 
robs me of my liberty ; B comes and buys me, and sells me to 
C for a profit; which man injures me most? Answer con- 
science, answer reason, answer slave ! Of course A is the 
greater enemy. If A takes all my goods by robbery, and B 
speculate upon them, which is the most criminal ? Of course, 
A ; because it becomes a matter of utter indifference to me 
whether A, B, or C, have them, so they pass beyond my con- 
trol. But a man's liberty is worth more than property ; a fortiori 
then, much more is the slave trader more virtuous than the 
slaveholder. Nay, if a slave trader, denouncing slavery as a 
crime, and refusing to own slaves, was to confine his trade at 
home^ and to iDhole families, selling from a bad master to a good 
one, we should place him infinitely above Mr. R., the slave- 
holder and defender of slavery ! But Mr. R. admits slave 
trading to be " in itself sinful," ergo^ slaveholding. or " slavery, 
is in itself sinful." q. e. d. 

The time is at hand when the white cravat and the black 
gown, and the slave coffle, shall be classed together in the de- 
testation of mankind, unless the Bible defenders of slavery be 
stripped of the sheep's clothing, that men may discriminate and 
see who it is that dare desecrate the temples of the living God, 
and turn its heavenly fold into a charnel house of blood, des- 
pair, and death. 

Mr. R. here admits that slavery is daily becoming more tol- 
erable in all the South. Indeed ! The chain is not tightened 
then, as he alleged in his first speech, by discussion and denun- 
ciation ! The Bible, he tells us, has done the work ! It has, in 
spile of its recreant guardians, stood a living fire, wasting away 
the bulwarks of time-honored oppression ! Give us the Bible ; 
and Heaven speed the day when its traitor priests shall be sent 
scudding across Mason and Dixon's line, " hke squirrels with 
the wind in their tails!" It is bad enough to flee from duty, 
but doubly infamous to make our cowardice the bulwark of op- 
pression and wo ! 

Mr. Rice, in connexion with Mr. B.'s remark that partus se- 
quitur ventrem, and that slavery places human beings among 
the cattle^ admits, that if this is true, slavery is detestable ! 
Now, if Mr. Rice can cite a single state in the Union where a 
slave is better protected by law than " cattle" we yield the 
whole ground ! He cannot. Shall the world hear it ? The 



DEBATE ON SLAVERY. 447 

virtue of the bmte creation is better protected than that of the 
human race ! No, Mr. Rice, the slave is not placed " among 
cattle," but below them; whilst as a being of consciousness and 
immortal nature, his condition is as far below the beast of the 
field, under a bad though law-abiding master, as the earth is 
below tlie heavens ! If to place a slave among brutes is detest- 
able, to place him below the brutes, is, a fortiori (Mr. R. loves 
a syllogism !) more detestable. If one is sinful, the other is al- 
together sinful. Q. E. D. And over this damnable system, if we 
do not roar as any sucking dove, Mr. R. does not see but that it 
would be very right to murder us ! And yet he preaches 7ion- 
resistance ! Out upon such Janus-faced morality ! 

" The Christians of the South are waking up to a sense of 
their obligation to have the gospel of Christ proclaijned to the 
slave as well as to the master."' Alas, alas ! so much the worse 
for them ; better never hear of God than to know him as an 
unrelenting and eternal tyrant. Far better 

" A friendless skive, a child without a sire, i 

Whose mortal life and momentary fire 
Lights to the grave his chance-created form, 
As ocean's wrecks illuminate the storm ! " 

Give us back our ignorance, our suflerings, our crimes, but 
for heaven's sake, destroy not all hopes of a God of justice, and 
mercy, and rest, beyond the grave ! 

Mr. Rice sips comfort from the saying of a reverend Monsieur 
Griffin, who did " not see that the efforts in favor of immediate 
emancipation have effected any thing but rivet the chains of the 
poor slave ! " Now, if slavery be right, the tighter the chain is 
riveted the better ; God forbid that the wrong should break 
loose. And if slavery be of God, why " poor slave ?" It is 
plain that the reverend Monsieur Griffui was rather a transpa- 
rently weak brother, and short of sight. If the blind lead the 
blind, they will surely fall into the ditch together. 

We are glad to get safely past Mr. R.'s complaints of want of 
something tangible in Mr. B. to his third proposition. There 
are revivals of religion in slaveholding churches, and slavehold- 
ers are accepted of God, but God accepts not sinners, therefore, 
slaveholders are not sinners ! There is a form of logic called 
petitio principii, a begging of the question ; but this syllogism 
is most too strong, even for logic ! The boys have a better 



448 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

nomenclature ; they would call it " coming the giraffe !" The 
swell mob would illustrate it by putting thumb on nose and 
twirling somewhat significantly the four digits. The Rounders 
would denounce it as a " fiery facias ;" and some very grave 
and respectable magistrates, whom we know, would content 
themselves after this sort, "non compos mentis!'' We have 
done. 

Brother, a parting word. You are in a bad cause. Be 
warned : 

"Ah, Tarn! ah Tam ! thou'U get thy fairin, 
la hell they'll roast thee like a herriu!" 



Crow-Foot Sketches. — New York. 

What is music ? No one can tell us. I have heard elo- 
quence, and read the first poems of human genius ; I have 
gazed for long hours upon all lovely nature, and the divine 
creations of art, yet nothing so moves me as music. Though 
I cannot describe it, I can feel it. Shakspearc has it, " If mu- 
sic be the food of love play on." No one doubts that the fea- 
tures of the one we love, grow yet more lovely under its influ- 
ence. The ancients, who illustrated all the phases of human 
passion and action by fable, had it that the wild beasts were 
tamed under the subduing strains of the harp of Orpheus. So 
in war, we hear of the stirring drum and thrilling fife. How 
is this ? Whence all these conflicting influences ? Would it 
be a definition of music to say, the inarticulate voice of the pas- 
sions ? It is certain that it is like the natural cries of pleasure 
or wo. It quickens every passion of the human soul. Cer- 
tainly much of its power arises from exciting the principle of 
association. When the Swiss hear the Ranz des Vaches, their 
native mountains are spread out before them in vivid, seeming 
reahty, and tears of fond remembrance suffuse their eyes. All 
the passionate love of glory, and turbid ambition is quickened 
to madness in the Frenchman when he hears the Marseillaise. 
Even the rude Yankee Doodle fires the patriotic ardor and mili- 
tary pride of brother Jonathan. There is an air which invari- 
ably brings to my mind the battles of the Duke of Marlbo- 
rough : whilst another pictures to me a sylvan rill, boyish 



CROW-FOOT SKETCHES. '• 449 

years, and a blue-eyed girl of twelve summers. Of the ambi- 
tious, who has not listened to strains of satanic energy, of des- 
pair, or elated hope of undying fame? Melancholy ! bitter are 
thy tones, when the wintry wind hurries in heart-chilling blasts 
through the shattered lattice of what was once home, when they 
of other years are gone ! Oh love, and crime, and poverty, and 
misery, and death, who has heard, unshaken, your many- 
tongued utterances? The many-voiced wind, the creaking 
forest trees, the gurgling brook, the rusbing ocean, the roaring 
cannon, the crashing thunder, the cricket's chirp, the liquid 
notes of sylvan birds, the voice of woman's love — if these speak 
a language, what is it? Now, it seems to me, that instrumen- 
tal combined music must have something hke this for a base, or 
foundation point. If so, there is much playing after the man- 
ner of what is called execution^ which is a waste of so much 
wind and cat-gut. " Cruning to a body's self," as Burns has it, is 
better than this. Is there not some affectation in all this ecstacy 
about '• forty cats a fighting?" Or is music like cooking, which 
can be so scrambled up with condiments, that one may unknow- 
ingly eat his grandmother's leg ? It is of no use however to 
ask these questions, for the grand altos and furiosos will wnio, 
me down " semplice ; " and every head-nudger cry out, ass ! 

However I may miss the mark in talking about music, I 
know something about " the voice that made tbose sounds more 
sweet " — woman. I cannot, therefore, agree with the apostate 
Jew, and northern renegade, southern boot lick, and servant- 
maid poetaster, Park Benjamin, that there is no beauty in New 
York. It is true that there is not that fairy-like, shadowy 
beauty which we find in the South, which, as frail wild flow- 
ers, almost buds, blows, and perishes in a day. But you find 
in New York fine, vigorous, elastic, rounded persons ; intellec- 
tual, variant, piquant faces; and a great many of them women 
that seem fit for other things than to look upon. So Gotham 
may say with any city in America " stand out my shin." 

I cannot say always with Wirt, "Objects loom large at a 
distance ; " or, in more poetical language, with Campbell, 

" 'Tis distance lenda enchaiitnieiit to the view, 
And robes the mountain in its azure hue," 

for, at a social party at L.'s I met many literary persons 

whom I had long known through their writings, and whom I 

29 



450 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

had afar off, long time imaged to my mind's eye ; yet 1 found 
them all T could have wished. Among them were Miss S., 
Mrs. K., Miss R, Miss L., Mrs. S. S., Mrs. O., etc. And then 
there were of the sterner sex, H., P., H., the artist, etc. 

I envy the East her ocean, her oysters, and her literary 
women. There is talent in the West of the highest order, but 
our people are too happy to write. When our cities become 
crowded with an energetic, pleasure-loving, ambitious, property 
proud population, then there will arise a class of writers far su- 
perior even, we believe, to any the world has yet heard. There 
is a magnificent substratum of mind in the West yet to be 
built upon, as expansive as our boundless and ever various 
and gigantic nature. We are already on the horizon, and 
" Westward the star of empire wends its way." 



LEXINGTON, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29. 

Speech of Henry Wilson op Mass. 

Since noticing some extracts of this speech, the whole of it, 
and the preamble and resolutions have come to hand. The 
resolutions of Mr. Culver, of New-York, concerning the over- 
throw of slavery in the District of Columbia, and this move in 
the Massachusetts Legislature, in addition to many other evi- 
dences too numerous to mention, prove what we have for years 
foreseen and most ardently hoped for, that the great Whig party, 
as in 1776, will soon rally on the great principle of resistance 
to tyranny and the rights of man. If not in 1848, in 1852, 
parties will be fairly made up upon this sole issue. The result 
we venture to predict. The majority of the present Whig par-' 
ty, a large minority of the Democrats, and no inconsiderable 
number of the Liberty party and Garrisonian abolitionists, will 
ultimately unite on some man and elect Idui. Slavery will be 
abolished in the District. The effort to introduce Cuba, or Cali- 
fornia, or Mexico, as slave states, will prove abortive. They 
may come in, but they loill have to come in free. The coast- 
wise slave trade will be abolished. The supreme court will be 
filled, as vacancies occur, with true free-born men, rightly inter- 



SPEECH OF H. WILSON. ^ • 451 

preting the Constitution in its true spirit of liberty. The South 
will bluster, but 7iot dare to sever the Union. All the grain- 
growing states will enter on schemes of gradual or immediate 
emancipation. The internal slave-trade will be abolished ; the 
Constitution changed, taking away slave representation. The 
clause requiring the return of fugitive slaves will be repealed. 
Slavery will retire into the cotton and sugar region and there 
die. The republic will be redeemed, and " universal liberty" be 
spread over this north continent. 

If this does not happen, then will the slave power increase ; 
Cuba, Mexico and California come in as slave states. The 
South will rule with an iron hand, joined with the commercial 
and manufacturing interests of the North : the great mass of 
Ameiicans, north and south, will be reduced to real slavery. 
The South will become more and more worn-out, more corrupt, 
and seek more and more the expansion of the government pat- 
ronage, and offices of profit, for her broken-down aristocracy. 

Foreign invasion, insurrection, and anarchy, will come upon 
us singly, or in mass, and despotism will swallow up this long- 
lived lie ! 

Well then, we say with Mr. Wilson, let the Whigs raise their 
colors, " constitutional resistance to the slave power, and tlie 
utter overthrow of slavery." Yes, it is our " inevitable destiny ;" 
let it come : the sooner the better ! The party has no chance 
for but four southern states ; in trying to gain them, which 
hereafter will be very doubtful, it will lose New-York and Penn- 
sylvania, and thus lose the battle ! We say the Whig party 
will never rise except upon the battle cry of ^'constitutional 
liberty f^ if it seeks any other it deserves defeat, just as certain- 
ly as it will meet it! Up, then, and to the battle-field ! " On, 
Stanley — on!" ' 



LEXINGTON, WE D N ESD A Y, M A Y 13. 

The Massachusetts Resolution. 

Since our last the Senate has rejected the resolution of Mr. 
Wilson by a small majority. This conduct on their part does 



452 • THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

not alter our opinion of Massachusetts : we believe her people 
are right, and not yet degenerate sons of glorious sires. 

Does the Senate, in its affected regard for Southern rights, for- 
get, that in refusing us their countenance, they are assisting in 
oppressing nearly eight millions of men? Are all their sympa- 
thies with the slaveholder ? Are they so in love with tyranny, 
as not to see our wounds and hear our cries? Or is there 
something worse behind the scene ? Is the great popular party 
of this union to be told outright, that the tariff and co^/!o/i-spin- 
ning are to be purchased by the sacrifice of the liberties of the 
country? 

Let these men beware, lest they push our endurance to the 
quick ! We have heretofore held to the " conservative " course 
through all its trials ; there are thousands like us, who have 
done so through hope of a returning sense of justice and mercy 
in the capitalists of this country. But if the capital of the North 
lias taken its ground oiajirm alliance with the slave despotism 
of the South, we say, with language laden with the groans and 
sufferings of miUions — hevmre ! 

This material temple of a nation's embodiment, we aspire to 
see eminently decked out in all the tasteful and luxurious adorn- 
ment of which the genius of man is capable ; but if all this is 
to be done only by the crushed affections, the stifled aspirations, 
the beggared bodies, and the brutified souls of the laboring mil- 
lions, we say — no ! — never ! 



Robert Walsh. 

This European correspondent of the National Intelligencer, 
in the case of the Polish Revolution, speaks out the instincts of 
his servile spirit ! It makes one's blood curdle to listen to his 
cold, snake-like fawning upon aristocracy and despotism — giv- 
ing the lie to all the generous sympathies and noble humani- 
ties which should characterize a countryman of Washington. 
Yet, on the whole, we are glad of this, if our once free people 
may be aware at last of all the dark and destroying influences 
which are secretly entangling them ! 



DEBATE ON SLAVERY. 'Z 453 



Rice and Blanchard's Debate on Slavery, 

CONTINUED REVIEW. 

Heathenism was far prefei-able to slaveholding Christianity. 
The gods of old were never contemptible, and heroic virtues 
were the fruit of their worship. But the sneaking, snivelHng 
meanness of slaveholding Christians brings the right into con- 
tempt, and makes virtue ridiculous. To avoid the odious im- 
putation of alliance with such time-servers, men seek crime and 
open wickedness, in order to preserve some self-respect, and 
attain to something of respectability. We see a reward of fifty 
dollars olfered for the best tract upon dancing ; whilst the om- 
niferous curse of slavery slumbers with the consecrated shrines 
of hoary impunity ! Will not infidelity and bloody and foul 
vice sweep with untold horrors our devoted land ? The salt 
has lost its savor ; the great and glorious flag of Christianity is 
struck down : and men wander in the dark, and horror and 
despair begin to fill the world ! 

In treating with ridicule Mr. Rice's third argument, we took 
not the easiest, though the most deserved, method of refutation. 

Slaveholders are accepted of God ; but God receives not sin- 
ners ; therefore slaveholders are not sinners, and, of course, sla- 
very, in itself, not sinful. We said Mr. R. here assumes the 
whole ground in controversy, and upon this assumption builds 
up a sort of syllogism to blind the weak-minded. 

AVho dare say that this or that man is accepted of God ? 
Who dare venture to assert that God accepts not sinners J This 
is not the doctrine of the Bible. No man knows the Father 
save the Son ; and no man doeth good, no, not one ; this we 
understand to be the teaching of the Christian religion. 

So far from this being true, we are told of many of the choice 
followers of God in olden times, perpetrating crimes which would 
disgrace a modern bandit ! Yet they were better than other 
nations ; we are worse ! 

But the Christian is a newer and a better code of morals than 
the Jewish dispensation ; and it knows not slavery, nor its ad- 
vocates. By the fruit shall the tree be known. If so, what are 
the fruits of slavery ? Every crime known among men follows 



454 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

swiftly at its heels. And the church has become literally a den 
of thieves, money changers, and robbers ! We speak not in 
terms of vindictive denmiciation, but use simply terms which 
are necessary to the conveying of the sense. Usury, contrary 
to law and gospel, has become a highly reputable calling among 
Southern churchmen; shaving notes, and brokerage, and "salt- 
ing," are right holy things ! A mercenary spirit pervades the 
church. They flatter their pride, by great temples built with 
hands, and filled with neg-ropeivs ! And the voice is no longer 
of one crying in the wilderness, clothed in sack-cloth and 
ashes, but the cry is oi gold, and where it cries loudest, there is 
" the call ! " Robbing, stealing, or counterfeiting a half dollar, 
will send a poor devil to the penitentiary, but the taking all the 
half dollars that a man may earn in a life time — the seizing on 
the man himself, controlling his will, his action, his morals, his 
mind, his soul, for the basest and most mercenary purposes — • 
this is a godly and Christian thing, a sweet morsel in the fasti- 
dious jaws of the church ! 

We say, then, that slaveholders are not accepted of God, un- 
less he loves sinners par excellence ! Yet we do not say, that 
slaveholders are all damned for ever, any more than all murder- 
ers and parricides are all sent to Hell ! Nay, so far from being 
thus uncharitable, we are willing to admit that even a Bible 
defender of slavery, by repentance, and the great goodness of 
God, may be saved — the hardest case of all ! 

We despise your slaveholding religion ! Here, on the Sab- 
bath preceding the mob of the 18th of August, when murder 
was avowedly contemplated from seven churches, which con- 
tinually annoy us with their everlasting bell-ringing, went up 
the ordinary cant to a sin-hating God, and not one, so far as 
we are informed, ventured to warn the people to keep their 
hands clear of the blood of an innocent man ! Words are im- 
potent to characterize such Judas Iscariotism ! If we were a mur- 
derer, a robber, a ravisher, a house burner, a seller of our country 
for gold, a parricide, a robber of the grave, a desecrator of the 
temples of God, they would have flocked around us, as buzzards 
over a dead ass ! But as we stood for the rights of man, the 
liberties of our country, and the imrity of Christianity, they 
were silent ; as dumb dogs they opened not their Mouths ; or, 
like some of old, cried out bitterly, we know not the man ; cru- 
cify him for he blasphemes ! And are these men the only con- 



DEBATE ON SLAVERY. 455 

servators of liberty and religion among men ; the brothers of 
martyrs ; the sons of the self-sacrificing and crucified Christ ! 

We alter the syllogism thus : These Southern slaveholding 
churches are sinners. God accepts not sinners, therefore slave- 
holding IS not of God, and slaveholding is in itself sinful ! 

We come now to Mr. R.'s fourth argument — the golden ride. 
*' Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men should 
do to you, do ye even so to them." Matt. vii. 12. 

Now, this rule, it seems to me, is the very gist of Christianity. 
If the Jewish system was ferocious and tyrannical, here was the 
new and better system of love and justice. If the Jewish sys- 
tem modified the system of slavery, and made it far better than 
that of the surrounding nations, here was a code of morals ut- 
terly abolishing it. Does Mr. Rice yield to the rule — does he 
give way to the dictates of conscience — will he allow the justice, 
" consistent with paramount duties," of enslaving himself or his 
children ? Oh no, not he ! But he slopes out of the difl^culty 
thus: A slave A«5r a hard master ; he begs you to buy him; 
you are not able without some pecuniary sacrifice ; yet, to pre- 
vent him from being torn from those he loves, you buy him, 
and take his services as an equivalent ; have you sinned by thus 
slaveholding ? By no means. 

This is the argument. Mr. R. has taken the most favorable 
case possible in the nature of things. We are glad of it; for 
if we can overturn him here again, we have him on the hip, and 
slavery itself is sinful. 

Now, in a government of laws of Mr. R.'s own enacting, be- 
fore he can claim the virtue of the good act above cited, he must 
prove that he has done what he could as a citizen by his vote 
and by solemn protest against slavery to overturn it. But the 
Christian slaveholders have not done this; therefore their peace- 
offering is tainted with crime, and not acceptable to God. God 
cannot be cheated with half-way repentance, or partial reform : 
the evil thing must be put away utterly. 

But even if he shall have voted against it, and shall have on 
all suitable occasions, lifted up his voice against it, and shall 
have been actuated by the best motives in purchasing the slave, 
still he is doing a criminal act, because he has become a par- 
ticipant in crime. His example, and his sanction, outweigh 
the special good. If the act of freeing a man from bondage 
was praiseworthy, it is vitiated by the price. The Holy Ghost 



456 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

cannot be bought with money. So the great claims of human- 
ity forbid a reward for doing justice or mercy. We fall into a 
stream, and we promise Mr. Rice if he will save us at the risk 
of his life, we will give him our whole estate : he saves us, and 
and we comply, and we and our family are reduced to beggary. 
Does not every one see that Mr. Rice has done a great injustice, 
although we might continue grateful for life saved l God im- 
planted in him a principle which required of him to save us if 
consistent with is " paramount duties." The preservation of his 
own life, his services for the support of his own family, &c., were 
to be duly considered, and if they would not allow him to ven- 
ture for us, well. But if he did venture, and saved us, all nature 
cries aloud against any remuneration, other than what we might 
Toluntartly bestow. 

Again : We are about to be murdered and robbed on the 
highway : Mr. Rice, being stronger than the robber, repels him 
at our instance, and simply robs us, sparing our life ; we are 
grateful, but still he is a robber ! So, if being a slave to a hard 
master, he buys us at our solicitation, and continues the slavery, 
he is still in degree only less guilty than the first master. For 
slavery being a malum in se, to which, in the nature of things, 
the will of the slave cannot be gained, all participation in it is 
sinful. Then slaveholding is, in the most favorable circum- 
stances, sinful, — " in itself," therefore " sinful." 

Abolitionists feeling the truth that all slaveholding was sin- 
ful, and knowing the criminality of example and sanction have 
refused to pay the master for the slave : because it would seem 
to recognise his right to enslave. They are wrong here, because 
if we ransom our friend from the Algermes, we, by paying the 
cost, manifest the injury done to him in his personal liberty. 
We are not a participant in his enslavement. But if we hold him 
in slavery ourself, we become, under whatever pretext, partici- 
pes criminis : and therefore guilty. We lay down the broad 
rule, then, that the eternal laws of our nature impose positive 
duties upon us, which, consistent with the paramount regard to 
self, friends, and country, we are bound to render to the mean- 
est of men : and to demand or receive an equivalent in money 
or service, is criminal in the eyes of nature and of God. 

We illustrate our proposition once more, by the common plea 
for exorbitant usury, that " the man needed it, else he would 
not have agreed to pay the per cent." 



DEBATE ON SLAVERY. 457 

Now, if A be in a strait, we are bound to aid him " consist- 
ently with our paramount duties ;" but if under the pretence of 
aiding, we avail ourself of his necessities to impoverish him, 
we are damnably criminal, however much we may cloak our- 
self in the assertion that we acted by his persuasion. All men 
instinctively feel this, without being able to give the reason. 
For no man is grateful to the usurer, and rightly ! So when 
you come to sift the secret thoughts of the slave, no jnatter 
under what circumstances enslaved and transferred, there will 
be something still galling in the yoke, which dries up the well 
of gratitude. 

We confess this proposition has cost us hours of long and 
labored thought ; but we trust we have sifted out its sophistry 
and exposed its falsehood. If so, we have taken the ground 
from under the slaveholding^church and left them naked and 
defen:eless to the indignation of men ! 

With regard to all instances where tlie laws throw obstacles 
in the way of emancipation, some of which Mr. Rice has enu- 
merated with some show of force, it aids nothing in proving 
slaveholding not in itself sinful ; for if it turn out that the mas- 
ter acts from co?npnlsion, then he is not a free agent, and of 
course not responsible. But wherever a man can emancipate, 
he is bound to do so even at great self-sacrifice. We utterly 
dissent from the idea that any man was bound to go from the 
free states to New-Orleans to inherit slaves there. He should 
have done as Palfrey, of Boston, have gone and brought them 
into freedom in other states ; or, if his circumstances would not 
have allowed it, then he should have borne solemn testimony 
in the face of the world against slavery, and have washed his 
liands of the crime ! For a special and limited charity is 
forbidden at the expense of the violation of the great and uni- 
versal laws of right ! And the man in this and all similar 
cases, violates the spirit and letter of the golden rule, which 
requires us to abstain from all participation in tyranny and 
crime ! Heaven help us to its speedy appreciation and rigid 
practice : then shall the right triumph, and slavery die ! 



458 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

LEXINGTON, WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 

Rice and Blanchard's Debate on Slavery. 

CONTINUED REVIEW. 

This is the Sabbath day. All visible nature smiles harmo- 
niously with the sublime quietude which God infuses into the 
souls of his true worshippers. His material representative, the 
life sustaining sun, glows warm in the heavens, and, by sea and 
shore, each mute and living thing responds to the jubilation of 
universal nature. Not on such a day as this, has ever " fool said 
in his heart, there is no God !" The heavens and the earth do 
not more fully declare his glorious Being, than the willing in- 
stincts of the grateful soul proclaim him a God of life, liberty, 
and love ! Oh my soul ! how shall they, who this day assum- 
ing to be his priests on earth, are busily engaged in reversing 
these divine characteristics, answer at the final account ? Chris- 
tianity, that broke down form, and ceremony, and caste, majesti- 
cally simple and sublime emanation from the Father of all men 
living, and having its being in universal love, how this day are 
bloody hands laid upon thy pure robes ! how are thy sacred 
temples desecrated ! 

The religion — that was designed to progress and expand 
itself with the progress of nature and man's civilization, that 
once poured, as a great river, its pure waters of life-giving 
energy, or like some great oak, spread out its fruit and shade 
for the protection and sustainment of man — has gone back into 
the ragged and cast-off" vestments of past ages ! stagnates in 
fetid pools, where are generated deadly miasmas and slimy 
monsters ; or, like parasitic moss, has seized on existing establish- 
menls to cover up abuses, or suck the life-sap from every glori- 
ous manifestation of moral principle ! Oh Christianity, the re- 
ligion of the soul, of nature, and of God, who shall deliver thee 
fioni this death ? Not in temples made with hands do we this 
day worship ; eternal and unchangeable are the manifestations 
of God's goodness ; the heavens and the earth are spread out 
before us ; our spirit, ever thirsting for conmiunion with the In- 
finite, here drinks unmeasured fulness ! From the everlasting 



DEBATE ON SLAVERY. 459 

depths of the universe comes a voice, — goodness is the only 
worship of God ! To be good is to be great — to fill the aspira- 
tions of earthly fame ; they who seal up a fountain of tears, 
shall there be embalmed for ever : but they who cause to run 
this blood of the soul, shall be wasted with it, and be no more ! 
To be good, is to be immortal ; in the world of spirits, it is the 
food of the soul ; the bread that multiplies by being broken ; 
an emanation of the Deity, it must return to its fountain once 
more, and be eternal, for it is God ! 

If all this be not the creation of a heat-oppressed brain, then 
is slavery not of God, but diametrical to his every nature, and 
" in itself sinful !" Mr. Rice, in his fifth speech, after complain- 
ing of Mr. Blanchard's portraying the sequences, but what he 
calls the abuses of slavery, asks, " Is every master a heinous 
and scandalous sinner, however kindly he may treat his 
slaves, and however conscientiously he may afford them religi- 
ous instruction ?"' We answer, no : not a heinous sinner, but 
still a si7mer ! He may be a very good man, worldly speaking 
— a good father, a good citizen, an honest man, a pleasant com- 
panion, a faithful husband, industrious, truthful, economical, 
intelligent— but not jrious ; not pleasing to God, because there 
is one thing lacking — he is still a master ! He has uswyed 
powers ; he has another man's labor ; he muzzles the ox that 
treads out the grain ; he takes away the germ of manhood ; he 
denies the equality of men, and the brotherhood of God's 
children ; he brutifies man's nature ; he puts him below the 
beasts ! he mars the human will, subverts the principle of free 
agency, and destroys, in consequence, the moral government of 
God. Yes, he is a sinner ! 

No doubt, the old friend of Gov. Cole thought he was doing God's 
service towards his slaves — " treating them kindly, and giving 
them religious instruction." But, when stript of his deceptions, 
when, like the rich man in the scriptures, who asked. Lord, 
what else am I to do ? there was a lust of gain lying at the 
bottom of the whole thing ! The young man was silent — so 
was the old Christian ; he saw, for the first time, that it was 
selfishness — a lust of money or dominion — that inlluenced him, 
and the requirement of all to be given up was " a hard say- 
ing !" 

" Is a man to be condemned as a sinner, simply because he 
is a slaveholder?" Yes! Mr. Rice. There is no help for it. 
God has decreed it ! Nature swears it ! Man's every instinct 



460 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

and immortal aspiration, echoes the damning yes ! The church, 
if she would, cannot shirk the test. She must either exclude 
slaveholding Christians, or fall ! The morality of the people is 
ahead of the church. The Christian religion will not fall : no, 
never ! But it will put on some other outward dress. It will have 
7iew teachers. There is a new era in the development of 
man's moral nature, of science, of politics, of civilization. The 
old creeds, forms, and abuses of the church, will become the 
cast-off shells of the new born chrysalis of expanded progres- 
sion. As sure as God, the church South, so far as it is wedded 
to slavery, must fall ! If it does not voluntarily change its 
position, so much the worse for us : so much the worse for 
liberty : so nmch the worse for morals : so much the worse for 
the souls of men. Through more suffering, and tears, and 
blood, and crime, and woe, we shall pass, as by fire, into the new 
era. But heaven nor hell can stay our onward march ! 

" Must every man holding this relation, forthwith dissolve it, 
v/ithout regard to circumstances ?" Yes, that is it. As to revo- 
lutionizing society, that is all stuff, a worn-out lie ! It answered 
its day ; it was in use some years ago, but British, and other 
national emancipation, have buried it so deep in the things that 
were, that Mr. Rice, and the whole church South, cannot re- 
surrect it. It is worn thread-bare : it will no longer clothe a 
savage, far less a Christian ! There are more men in France 
given to adultery and fornication, than there are men in the 
South given to slaveholding. proportionate to number. What 
is to become of this illicit connexion ; what of these victims of 
sin ? Would Mr. Rice advise their " turning loose .?" Many 
of them are helpless women, without " capacity to take care of 
themselves," would he revolutionize society ? Would he preach 
immediate reform ? Yes, as a man and a Christian, yes ! 
Those who are unable, by long departure from the right, to take 
care of themselves, should be taken care of by their destroyers. 
So of the slaves, "poor things;" cannot help reach them, as 
well in a state of freedom, as in a state of slavery ? Then, 
why not act now, to-day ? We honestly believe, that if every 
slave under the whole heavens, v/ere liberated this hour, that it 
would be infinitely better for master and slave, and all man- 
kind. Yet, because of man's selfishness, and unbelief, and un- 
yielding habits, if we cannot bring an immediate, we will take 
gradual emancipation, so that at last the right be done ! 

Mr. Rice asks if we would insist on the doctrine that all men 



DEBATE ON SLAVERY. 461 

are bom free and equal ; would we have every young woman 
in England claim to be in all respects equal to Victoria ? Yes ! 
Men are not equal, and cannot be equal, in personal and moral 
and intellectual development. God has made them unequal in 
this respect ; and this inequality seems necessary in the pyra- 
midical structure of creation — God being the head. But the 
Declaration of Independence asserts a truth — a jiractical truth 
— the political equality of men. 

Our fathers of '76, met to talk and act about government, 
and their language was directed to that end. They denied 
that George had more natural right to govern than Jefferson. 
Does Mr. R. deny this ? He dare not ! So far as Queen Victoria, 
is Q,ueen of England by the consent of a majority of her subjects, 
she is the Queen by their will, not by nature. Nay, if a nation 
choose, for supposed or real expediency, to say that a certain 
family shall supply a ruler by biith, for a succession of ages, 
it does not contradict the doctrine of natural political right and 
equality ; because the right of each one being king or queen, is 
ivaived by consent. But if George or Victoria claims this place 
upon any other ground than the will and consent of their peo- 
ple, then is their sovereignty null and void, and ought to fall. 
So if it turn out that slavery exists by the consent of the en- 
slaved, which in the nature of things is impossible, then is 
slavery right, and natural equahty not violated ! But if slavery 
be claimed on any other ground, such as the divine right of 
masters or kings, then is it an usurpation, in violation of natural 
political equality, and ought to perish. 

"Every king or emperor of Europe that exercises arbitrary 
j)ower" is, of course, a " sinner." If his subjects assent to his 
exercise of power, it is not arbitrary. If the subjects do not 
assent, but are subjected to arbitrary power by force, latent or 
overt, then is every king and emperor, so governing, an usurper 
tyrant, criminal, and ''sinner.'^ Wherever we find a monarch 
governing in the affections and by the consent of his subjects, we 
find a good man : wherever we find a master doing the same 
thing in regard to slavery, slavery ceases, and the man is no 
longer master, nor sinner ! No arbitrary monaich, however 
good he may be, can be worthy of the admiration of men ! He 
not only unmans his people, but by withholding a constitutional 
government, he deprives them of their natural right, which all 
his failure to abuse power, or all his positive beneficence cannot 



462 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

counterbalance. But, above all, he subjects them to the chances 
and, by the nature of things, to the certainty of tyranny in his 
successors. If he resigns his power and leaves no successors, 
then he tacitly yields up his assumed sovereignty to its legiti- 
mate owners — the people. It is unworthy of Mr. Rice, or any 
other man, in this age of intelligence and advanced understand- 
ing of human rights, affecting to teach others, to be groping 
about in the dark himself. The man who undertakes, in this 
republic, to discuss questions of such magnitude, should blush 
to be continually stranded in the shallow waters of hoary error 
and stupidity. 

"How far may circumstances and the good of society justify 
restricting the privileges or liberties of men ? " 

We are silly enough to suppose this problem solved by every 
philosophical mind and passuig scholar for the last half century 
at least. Force, or its representative, law, in religion^ and in 
government^ should go just so far as to prevent one individual 
from trampling upon the rights of another, and no farther. A 
man yields up to society only so much of his liberty as is neces- 
sary to protect the remainder. A government which leaves us 
not as much protection against the trespass of another as we 
had in a state of anarchy or nature, is an usurpation, and 
ought to perish. Slavery is that government ! 

The false positions of abolitionism have no doubt done harm, 
but the discussion of slavery has done infinite good. True 
abolitionism is good ; impracticable discussion and action better 
than none, for they elicit the true and the practicable. Tyranny 
always grows more violent when attacked ; but when the 
friends of freedom are once aroused, it shall surely fall. If the 
trumpet is never sounded, the forces cannot move to battle ; and 
if the battle is not fought, victory is not won. The bitterness 
with which slaveholders denounce abolitionists, shows that their 
arrows have reached the vitals ; weapons which only penetrate 
the armor never cause the wearer to cry out. So far as the 
abolitionists have assaulted slavery in an unconstitutional way, 
by " stealing slaves," resistance to the laws, and assaults upon 
the Christian religion, they have done harm, but still less harm 
than good ; for any thing is better than lethargy. But they 
who have at great personal sacrifice earnestly cried out against 
our national crime, shall be ranked with the benefactors of 
mankind. Neither do we find fault with the manner, so that 



DEBATE ON SLAVERY, 463 

the truth be made sure ; for Christ, the mildest and most patient 
being the world ever saw, dealt at times in the most scathing 
denunciation that ever startled the ears of men ! If the cry of 
fire be not rung into the ears of the listless slumberer, he will 
be burnt in his bed ! 

If we knew any language more terrific than we have ever 
used towards slavery, we would hail it as heaven's help ! 

" Could I embody and embosom now 
That which is most within me — could I wreak 
My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw 
Soul, heart, mind, passions, feelings, strong or weak; 
All that I would have sought, and all I seek, 
Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe — into one word. 
And that one word were Lightning, I would speak; 
' , ' But as it is, I live and die unheard. 

With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword." 

With regard to the numerous instances of special cruelty 
which Mr. Rice undertakes to refute, it is all love's labor lost : 
the main stem of slavery is the sum of all evil — we need waste 
no words upon its branches and leaves. 

Mr. Rice asks, " Am I here to defend any system of slavery ? " 
No ! by no means ! Mr. Rice is not yet so abandoned : he has 
not the brass of the Carohna school ! That would be too bad, 
even for Mr. Rice ! He is here to apologize for the false position 
of his church, and to whitewash slaveholding Christians ! You 
can't do it, Mr. Rice. The sooner you retreat, the better. The 
sooner the church retreats the better. 

" I believe that the state of Kentucky would do wisely to get 
rid of it. I do desire that it should everywhere come to an end." 
Then out spoke the heart of the ma«, when was lost the armor 
of the churchman ! What ! if it be not in itself sinful ? If it 
be of God, why should it come to an end ? No, Mr. Rice, wo 
hold you to your premise, if it be of God, if it is sanctioned by 
the Christian code, if this cant about " the cuise of Canaan " be 
not " madness and fanaticism," we hold you to your creed. We 
forbid you to wish its overthrow ! We demand of you to utter 
daily your prayers to the God of all nations, that the prison- 
house be strengthened, and the chains more heavily forged ! 
seeing that the " Peculiar Institution" is set on by a great army 
of spirited and determined men — swearing by the heavens, and 
the earth, and the soul of man, that it shall die ! They who are 



464 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

not for us are against us, say tlie friends of liberty ; so say also 
the foes of human rights. God is on one side or the other, he can- 
not be neutral in such a contest ; wide as heaven is from hell is 
the space which divides liberty from despotism. " You cannot 
serve God and mammon ! " You must pray for the breaking 
of every bond, and that the oppressed go free : or else, that 
despotism set in terrors upon the hearts of men, the iron enter 
into the flesh, and despair and death into the immortal soul ! 



LEXINGTON, WEDNESDAY, MAY 27. 

The United State.s an Elective Monarchy. 

The experiment of self-government and republicanism in the 
United States has failed ! "VVe know what we say. Every 
essential guaranty of liberty has long since fallen, and now not 
even a shoio of regard for constitutional government is left us. 

Trial by jury has been and is now denied in more than half 
of the states ! The right of habeas corpus has been and is now 
denied in more than half of the stales ! The liberty of speech 
and of the press has been and is now denied in more than half 
of the states ! The clause of the Constitution, which says, " No 
person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due 
process of law," has been and is now violated in a majority of 
the states, in the District of Columbia, and in the Territories. 

That clause of the Constitution which says, " This Constitu- 
tion, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in 
pursuance thereof, shall be the supreme law of the land, any- 
thing in the Constitution or laws of any state notwithstanding," 
has been and is now habitually violated North and South. 

That clause in the Constitution which says, " The citizens of 
each state shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities 
of citizens in the several states," has been and is now set at 
defiance. 

That clause which says, "A person charged in any state with 
treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice, and 
be found in another state, on demand of the executive authority 
of the state from which he fled, shall be delivered up, to be 
removed to the state having jurisdiction of the crime," has been 
and is now habitually violated. 



UNITED STATES A DESPOTISM. 455 

That clauseof the Constitution which says," The judicial power 
shall extend to all cases in law and equity — between citizens 
of different states," has been and is now habitually violated. 

That clause of the Constitution which prescribes the mode of 
electing- the President, has been and is now habitually violated. 

That clause of the Constitution which says, " No state shall 
emit bills of credit," has been and is now habitually violated. 

That clause of the Constitution which says, " Representatives 
shall be apportioned among the several states, according to their 
respective numbers," has been, in the case of Texas, flagrantly 
violated. 

That clause of the Constitution which says, " No person shall 
be a Senator, who shall not have been nine years a citizen of 
the United States," has been, in the case of Texas, flagrantly 
violated. 

That clause of the Constitution which says, the President 
" Shall have power, by and with the consent and advice of the 
Senate, to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators 
present concur," was, in the case of Texas annexation, flagrantly 
violated. 

I'hat clause of the Constitution which separates the executive 
and legislative powers of the government, and gives to Congress 
only the power " to declare war," in the case of the march into 
the Mexican border, and makmg mihtary posts in the bounds, 
and on the undisputed soil of a nation, at peace with us by 
solenm treaties of friendship and amity, is grossly violated. 
And when we remember that all this despotism is imposed upon 
us to sustain African " slavery, the lowest, the most unmitigated, 
tlie basest, the world has seen !" we are ready almost to declare 
oiuselves in all respects absolved from any allegiance to the 
American Union. 

In the name of the Constitution which has been overthrown ; 
in the name of liberty which has been destroyed ; in the name 
of the rights of man which have been trampled in the dust, we 
solemnly protest against the usurpations of the present admin- 
istration. We onl)'^ fail to use physical resistance because we 
are overpowered ; yet, with the unconquerable spirit of our sires 
of '76, we call upon our fellow-citizens of America, to resort 
to the ballot-box, if possible, to restore the broken Constitution ; 
and if we shall hopelessly fail, then let all lovers of liberty, and 
self-government, concentrate in some portion of the continent, 
and form a government for themselves. 3q 



"466 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

The usurpation of Texas, it seems, was not enough for the 
insatiable appetite of slavery. Jcwies K. Polk, without any 
authority from this people, but in derogation of the sovereignty 
of the same, contrary to the solemn treaties of peace constitu- 
tionally made with our sister republic, Mexico — contrary to the 
laws of nature, of nations, and of God — has marched a hostile 
army into the Mexican territory beyond the Nueces, which -is 
the farthest possible boundary of Texas, to Matamoras on the 
Rio Grande, driving women and children before him, for the 
sole purpose of enlarging the slave-market, and strengthening 
the despotism of the South. 

Americans, sons of Washington, of Adams, of Franklin, of 
Jefferson, have we come to this? Shall we prove ourselves 
willing traitors to the liberties of men ? Shall we shed our 
blood in such a damnable cause ? No ! let us rise in the once 
mighty strength of our illustrious sires, the unconquerable power 
of a just and free people, and say to these infamous tyrants, 
withdraw your army from another's soil, restore the bleeding 
Constitution of our unhappy country, and let slavery, the cause 
of all our woes, cease on the whole continent. 



War Meeting. 

On Saturday, the 16th of May, after notice previously given, 
the people of Lexington and Fayette county, met at the court 
house to take into consideration the affairs of the republic, 
(military despotism !) The house and galleries were full, but 
there was very little appearance of any other feeling but curi- 
osity to learn and see. 

General L. C. entered with hat in hand, and after a few faint 
calls, ascended the Tribune. He seemed to be evidently press- 
ing himself up to the sticking point, against the true feelings of 
human nature, for the General, though a slaveholder, and 
Texas land speculator, is nevertheless a good fellow. He com- 
menced by saying, that it was anticipated that officers of the 
meeting would have been selected, yet it was not important, and as 
it was expected that he would say something, he would proceed 
at once. The map of Texas was hung upon the wall, all that 
part of Mexico between the Nueces and the Rio Grande, called 
Texas, was put in blue ! He asked for a rattan, and pushed 



WAR MEETING. - ^qj 

without further preface in medias res. Tliere, gentlemen, is a 
map of Texas, once the repubhc of the Lone Star, but now one 
of the states of this Union, and however much we once diflered 
about it, all now must agree to stand for its brotherliood. 
[The General was for Clay and the Presidency, but that failing 
was for the land.] 

The boundary of Texas begins here at the Sabine, and runs 
thence north and west, with the United States boundary line to 
the Rocky mountains, in latitude about 42 = , four degrees 
further north than Lexington. From the mouth of the Sabine 
it runs along the Gulf of Mexico to the mouth of the Rio 
Grande, or Bravo, and with the Bravo, to its source in the Rocky 
Mountains, and its intersection with the United States line ! 
(This boundary takes in a large portion, besides Texas, of the 
Mexican provinces of Cohahuila, Tamaulipas, and Santa Fe, 
upon which never was set the foot of a Texan, except as a 
prisoner ! But the General loves land !) 

General Taylor is a Kentuckian, and a good soldier, but he 
is evidently in a false position, perhaps ordered there by the 
Executive. Here is Matamoras, some twenty or thirty miles 
from the mouth of the Rio Grande, on the west bank of the 
river, in a sort of horse-shoe bend, on the east bank, is Gen. 
Taylor's army, some 2,200 strong, and well fortified, with his 
guns bearing upon the opposite city, and the guns of the city 
bearing upon his camp. 

Here, about twenty or thirty miles on the Gulf, is Point Isa- 
bel, with the stores and ammunition, wagons, &,c., approach- 
able by sea, and by two routes by land from Corpus Christi. 
This is the place where Taylor ought to be. Because it form.s 
the heel of a fan, with the fingers resting upon divers points 
upon the Mexican border, liable to attack in divers places, and 
thereby causing them to scatter their force along the whole 
river. He wished not to be critical. [The General wants, it 
is said, the command of the Kentucky forces ! But so far as we 
can learn, there is a general disposition to confer the command 
upon us. First, because we are supposed to be, not an abler, 
but an older soldier, for the General, claims being a widower, 
to be but " but a boy !" and next, because the community would 
thus be rid of a man who is thought to be a thorn in the king's 
side ! If we make up our mind to fight in this cause at all, we 
think we shall outrank the General, we having commanded uni- 



468 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

form^ and the General having only commanded corn-stalk 
militia !) 

But General Taylor, in leaving his post at Isabel, rendered 
himself liable to be cut oft" from provisions and recruits. For 
should the Mexicans intercept him in the rear, by taking Isa- 
bel, and thus preventing sea passage, and by stationing a de- 
tachment above Isabel, on the road to Corpus Christi, cut him 
ofT from land passage, his case is almost hopeless. For, al- 
though he and his officers are gallant and well disciplined, his 
men are mostly foreigners, too lazy to work on railroads, peck- 
rock, or drive carts, and willing to enlist in order to get bread ; 
although they were to wash their own clothes, and cook their 
own victuals, he much feared they would not be able to cut 
their way through the enemy, or advance upon Malamoras. 
For, although this white race, with blue, black, and red, and 
all sorts of eyes, were destined, as he believed, by God, to 
over-run and own the world, yet the Spaniards were not such 
mean soldiers at last ; for theij believed they were fighting for 
their religion, their altars, as well as their hearths ! [Indeed ! 
a strange belief, to be sure. General] And in such a cause 
It was hard to whip any men. [Yes, truly.] 

So, when the company was sent out to see if the troops had 
crossed the river, as it was reported, Capt. Thornton, no doubt 
acting upon this idea, contrary to the orders of Taylor and 
the advice of his guide, pushed into the enemy's whole army, 
intending, no doubt, to destroy the army at a blow, and make 
himself President. Of course he was knocked into a cocked 
hat in less than no time. He and his sixty men were killed 
and taken prisoners. To take Mexico we need 20,000 men 
as an advance guard, followed up with lengthening columns of 
fives and ten thousands in the rear. The General still, however, 
hoped for the best. Rapid reinforcements had been sent on 
from New Orleans, Mobile, and no doubt Texas and Missis- 
sippi. But the truth was, with a large and excited popula- 
tion of a peculiar kind at home, it was not safe to draw 
many men from the South! So that Kentucky and Ten- 
nessee ought to turn out ! as it was perfectly safe to spare 
any number of men from those warlike states. He was 
himself willing to bear a hand if called on, and he supposed 
an indication of that kind on the part of Kentucky, at pre- 
sent, was enough. 



WAR MEETING. 469 

We have given a veiy meagre sketch of the General's 
speech ; we shall be pleased to report him from his own 
notes. 

During- the speech the United States flag was introduced with 
its stars and ^'- stripes^ It produced very little sensation, be- 
cause every man present felt that the cause was bad, and the 
colors of the free desecrated ! 

Judge J. E. D. then, after some hesitatiion, moved that 
Squire Hickman take the chair, and Maj. C. C. R. be secretary, 
whicli v/as assented to. The mobile having taken the chair, 
Judge D. proceeded to make a few remarks previous to offering 
a resolution. He said he differed in some respects from the gal- 
lant General. He could not believe that Taylor was whipt, or 
Point Isabel taken. That the wagoners, and carpenters, and 
artillerists at Isabel would whip any amount of Mexicans. He 
then went on to review the Texan war, and to show the inferi- 
ority of the Mexican troops. He was willing to lay a wager 
that they were now whipt, and that Taylor had advanced over 
the river upon Matamoras. The object of the Judge seemed to 
be to arouse the flagging courage of the audience, which the 
General had caused to ebb considerably. The resolution was 
then read, in substance as follows : 

Resolved, That we have heard with concern of the critical 
situation of the army of occupation, and of the call made upon 
the southern states for reinforcements ; Kentucky claims also 
a share in the labor and the peril of arms, and holds herself 
ready to march at a moment's warning. 

Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be sent to the Pre- 
sident of the United States, and that they be inserted in the 
city papers. 

Mr. G. offered a preamble stating the wrongs received by 
the United States from Mexico, and justifying our defence! An 
miiversal murmur of dissent ran through the audience, and 
Mr. G. withdrew them without putting them to the vote ! 
We were glad of this, for it saved us from inflicting a speech 
upon im willing ears, and showed that our people, if robbers, 
were not willing to add hypocrisy and falsehood to bloody and 
merciless crime ! 

The resolutions were then voted, and the meeting, after Hail 
Columbia and Yankee Doodle were played, adjourned with a 
most dove-like quietness. 



470 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

The heroes of the 18th were remarkably scarce. The vene- 
rable President was the only one we recognized ! 

What business had General Combs to give the lie to those 
redoubtable champions of their country's liberties, by saying 
that Kentucky would be ^^ perfectly safe''^ with a large portion 
of her soldiers withdrawn ! Now, the patriots of the 18tli 
think just the contrary. They seem to think that it would be 
very dangerous for them to go to war leaving us in the rear ! 
Well has some one pithily said, " a lie cannot live ! " 

Now, we wish to be distinctly understood. We say we have 
not the least shadow of title to the land west of the Nueces. 
The reason why General Taylor has pushed himself into this 
straight is, that he might, by threatening Matamoras, block- 
ading the Rio Grande, and occupying^ the Mexican soil, force 
them to yield their just rights ! We solemnly protest against 
the damning usurpation of James K. Polk in making war 
without the consent of Congress, passed in the most formal and 
solemn manner. At the same time, when we are actually at 
war, we are ready to defend our poor soldiers who have been 
forced by death from desertion into this unwilling danger ! 

If called upon by Governor Owsley to take our old command, 
or any other post, we are willing to do so : whilst we demand 
of Congress, as a citizen of a republic, where the highest and 
the lowest are equally entitled to be heard, to cause the Presi- 
dent to withdraw his forces from the soil of a friendly sister 
republic, and punish him for his assumption of kingly power, 
in putting to death, without trial, American citizens, and 
making war without constitutional right ! 



Rice and Blanchard's Debate on Slavery. 



CONTINUED REVIEW. 



There is in this debate good hearty quarreling, and brotherly 
insinuation of the lie direct, that shocks our sensibilities. 
" Brother" Rice, for the first time in his numerous debates, gets 
angry ! 

Mr. Rice contends that the slave is as well protected from 
cruelty in Kentucky as the child of the parent. We must at- 
tribute ignorance to Mr- Rice, to save him from the imputation 



DEBATE ON SLATERY. 471 

of falsehood. When we come across such stuff as this, we lose 
all patience. Some few years ago Robert Wickliffe introduced 
and carried through the legislature a law authorizing a slave to 
be sold when cruelly treated. But as every human cruelty, 
specifically named, can be inflicted on the slave according to 
law, there remains nothing else coming under the denomination 
of " cruelty ;" unless it be to reduce the " poor slave" to a state 
of freedom ! If a slave may be whipped to death, shot for in- 
subordination, kept in utter ignorance, have his food and medi- 
cine prescribed, be raped with impunity, worked without wages, 
and damned with all sorts of opprobrious epithets from infancy 
to old age, is it not worse than nonsense to talk about any 
other cruelty ? Can any of this happen to the child, without 
some redress 1 Why then will Mr. R. stultify himself? 

This is as barefaced a fiction, as the solemn vote of the 18th, 
that we were an irisurrcctionist ; which not a single man pre- 
sent believed to be true ! The Avorld has always underrated the 
deep and unfathomable Machiavellism of slavery. What was 
the cause of our overthrow on the 18th? We had largely esti- 
mated the hellish baseness of slaveholders, but we had infinitely 
underrated it ! 

He reiterates his second argument. As we flatter ourselves 
that we have effectually used that up, we pass on. 

Mr. Rice again presses the right of blacks to vote. We give 
him rope in his eulogy upon the Declaration of Independence. 
It is plainly felo de se! If he is in earnest, he admits his own 
crime ; if in irony, he wants the outspoken boldness of the 
Carolina school to make his treason respectable ! 

It is true that in Kentucky there is no law to prevent slaves 
from reading. But slavery has a law of its own — Lynch law ! 
When Lewis Marshall, the father of T. F. Marshall, attempted 
to teach a black school, John U. Waring and others, took a 
rope and showed him a limb ! Yes, they played the game of 
the 18th of August upon him ! These facts were related to me 
by Waring himself, in the presence of D. McPayne. Perhaps 
Thomas' hereditary instincts led him to be on good terms with 
Judge Lynch ! Again, when some members of the city council 
of Lexington voted to allow a free black school even, they 
were placarded in the streets by this same Judge Lynch ! So 
far from letting slaves read, they won't allow free blacks to have 
schools to read : so far from letting free blacks read, they won't 



472 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

let free whites read ! Witness the stealing of the common 
school fund, and the overthrow of the True American on the 
18th! 

Mr. Rice again pleads the law as a justification of Christians 
in what he is forced to admit is criminal! In a country where 
every voter is responsible for the laws, and those laws are found 
to be criminal and infamous, cannot Mr. Rice see that he must 
first prove that he has voted against the laws, and used all the 
means consistent with his "paramount duties" for its repeal, 
before he stands acquitted ? Mr. Rice, by attempting to sancti- 
fy and whitewash slavery, and by denouncing tlie friends of 
abolition, takes upon himself the damning guilt of the whole 
system. We say of this action as we said of Junkins', we had 
rather fill any other place, in the category of crime, than his. 

The reverend gentleman takes up again the thread of his 
third speech, and wishes to know what a Christian is to do. 
Avhere the laws will not allow emancipation. We will tell him. 
Change the law. Do all you can, consistent with " paramount 
duties," to change it. Tell the slave you have no right to his 
services, farther than to pay the taxes, and provide for his sup- 
port in old age. Pay him wages. Tell him how he can get 
free if he wants to, by flying into the land of English tyranny ! 
Has your Christian slaveholder done this? No! Then he is 
deceiving himself, or imposing upon the world. 

Ex-Governor Cole told us that, after he had freed his slaves, 
by taking them from Virginia to Illinois, in returning to Vir- 
ginia, he stopped at the house of an old Presbyterian acquaint- 
ance, one of Mr. Rice's Christian slaveholders. The old 
gentleman immediately began to protest that his slaves were a 
tax upon him — he wished they were all free — he would set 
them free at once, but, poor tilings, they could not take care of 
themselves — if any one would take care of them, he would 
liberate them that moment. 

Mr. Cole listened very patiently till he was through with all 
this usual cant, and then replied: "My Dear Sir, you deceive 
yourself; you are not in earnest." " I call God to witness that 
I am in earnest," said the Presbyterian. " Well, then," said the 
Governor, "I pledge myself to take them, and take care of 
them, and plant them with my freedmen in Illinois." " Up to 
ihis time." said the ex-Governor, " my old friend had been in- 



DEBATE ON SLAVERY. ' 473 

sisting- upon my stayino^ with him ; my horse was at the stile ; 
but after lliis he never said another word. I mounted my horse 
and as far as I could see him, he was gazing on the ground 
just as I left him." The old man had all along deceived him- 
self! The human heart is desperately wicked — who can know 
it? 

Mr. Rice then comes to his fifth argument against the doc- 
trine of abolition : Because the doctrine of abolition leads men 
to pursue a different course from that of the apostles of Christ. 
Christ and the apostles went among the heathen, and denounc- 
ed their superstition ; whilst the abolitionists stay at a distance 
and remonstrate against it ! Now this is too silly to come from 
even Mr. Rice. 

If the cases are similar, it proves only that they lack the 
courage and self-sacrifice of Christ and Paul. So the Southern 
church are more cowardly even than abolitionists (for some of 
them have fallen martyrs to their opinions), but is the Christian 
religion therefore /aZi-e, because its priests are traitors I But 
we utterly deny that it is the duty of abolitionists to come 
into the slave states. They have no more right to come here, 
and declaim against slavery, than we have to go to Russia and 
denounce despotism of the same sort there. The laws of com- 
ity, and of nations, and good sense, forbid this. The nation is 
also a slaveholder too, and Northern men ought to cease to hold 
slaves unconstitutionally in the District of Columbia before they 
can spare their missionaries here, even if it was proper. So far 
as slavery affects the nation, any citizen of the republic ought, at 
any place, to raise his voice against it ; but so far as slavery is 
a municipal institution, confined to the states, there none but 
citizens have any right to cause popular agitation. The right, 
however, of free speech and thought at home, on any subject, 
and about any government, is one of the inalienable rights of 
man, and Mr. Rice is very silly in denouncing it. 

Mr. Rice, in his zeal to taunt his brother of Ohio, forgets the 
pitiable dilemma in which he places himself. For, if it be right 
for abolitionists to come here and cry out against slavery, then 
all the uproarious objections made against it are criminal ! If 
it be not safe, as he intimates, to do so, then are the slave states 
proved to be lawless murderers, violating the American Consti- 
tution, and the laws of God and nature ! The truth is, Mr. 



474 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

Rice, in his accusation against abolitionists, of a want of apos- 
tolic courage, seals his own condemnation ; for he confesses, 
that if he were to preach, as he taunts them for not doing, that 
he and the other priests would be sent across the Ohio, "like 
squirrels with the wind in their tails !" 

But Mr. Rice wnll soon be put to shame, unless we are very 
much mistaken, for we believe that the time is at hand, when 
the true followers of Christ will stand like Paul upon Mars Hill, 
and cry out with omnipotent power against this worse than 
Pagan crime ! So that if we have not now shown his argu- 
ment false, it will then prove itself so ; for if a want of courage 
and home contact with slavery proves abolitionism spurious, 
when the bull is taken by the horns, it will then be proven the 
real thing ! So the days of his fifth proposition, to say the least, 
are nimibered. Nay, if we might be allowed to state our own 
case, is his fifth argument not already dead ? For we declare 
as Paul : Ye men of Kentucky, we " perceive that in all things 
ye are too superstitious ; for as I passed by and beheld your de- 
votions, I found an altar with this inscription. To the unknoiun 
God r For there is but one true and only God, the Father of 
all men — a God of justice, and no respecter of persons — a God 
hating oppression, and not at all tolerant of sin ! Whereas the 
God whom ye worship, is a God of injustice and oppression, 
having respect to the color of the skin, and dooming a whole 
people to eternal slavery ! 

END OF TRUE AMERICAN. 



ESSAYS, SPEECHES, &c 

BY C. M. CLAY. 



SKETCH OF A SPEECH 

Delivered on the 20th day of May, 1846, before 5,000 Kentuckians, in the City 
of Lexington. 

Gen. Leslie Combs, having made a few remarks, concluded 
by saying, any person who chooses to address the people, or 
whom the people choose to hear, can now speak. 

After a long and unanimous call, Mr. C. arose and said : 

Men of Fayette. It is well-known to at least a portion of 
you, that no man has more steadily and unsparingly de- 
nounced this war than I. Both by speech and the pen, have I 
warned my countrymen of the calamity which is now upon 
us. At the White Sulphur Springs, I told you that in taking- 
Texas, we took her war ; and this position is now sustained by 
a leading Texan Senator, Gen. S. Houston, if the stern catas- 
trophe left any longer room for speculation. 

Up to the time that this war was legalized by congres- 
sional assumption, it continued to meet my uncompromising 
opposition. 

But now, stern necessity leaves me no alternative ; my coun- 
try calls for help, and, " right or wrong," I rally to her standard. 
Whatever difference of opinion may have honestly or dishon- 
estly existed between us in matters of civil administration, is 
lost in the great first law of nations, as well as of individuals, 
and the instincts of self-preservation lead me to make common 
cause in the defence of our common country. 

He shall be deemed the true friend of his country, who not 
only consistently warns her against evil, but rescues her from 
the danger of her errors or her crimes. And, as at no time 



476 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

have I sought individual popularity at the expense of the com- 
mon good, so now I shall not claim exemption from common 
danger and equal sacrifice, upon the plea that others, and not 
I, are responsible for this thing. 

It is the true glory of a free people, that we are not called 
upon to execute the mandate of an inexorable superior. It is 
our part to advise, as well as to act ; and whilst 1 volunteer to 
risk my life in the battle field, I claim the right of a parting 
word in council. 

It is now out of place to review the Texan controversy. 
Whether Texas was rightly admitted into this Union or not 
remains to other times and other places than now and here, for 
determination. 

Thus much, however, I do say, that I am constrained to re- 
gard the river Nueces as the western boundary of Texas. We 
ask of you that, whilst we fly to the rescue of our gallant 
army, that you place us on the safe ground of justice. 

I go not as the enemy of the Catholic religion, nor the 
invader of a sister republic, in a war of aggression and 
rapine. 

I ask that we conquer an lionorable and speedy peace ; and 
that our unhappy enemy shall not be forced to dishonorable 
terms. 

I believe that an overpowering force, thrown at once into 
the Mexican dominions, will in the long run save treasure and 
blood. 

I do not believe the war can last long, without bringing the 
allied nations of Christendom against us ; and whatever success 
we may have had at other times, it is not now that we can hope 
to stand against the world in arms. 

It was a good and wise custom among the Athenians, that he 
who advised the republic, should prove the fidelity of his coun- 
sel by personal execution. So now I fall into the ranks, as a 
private, with my blanket and canteen, giving practical illustra- 
tion of that equality of privilege among men which I have 
ever advocated. If from the Executive, or the people, I shall 
receive promotion, I shall unaflTectedly be gratified, for I regard 
the confidence and approbation of my countrymen as only less 
than the consciousness of having, partially at least, at all times 
discharged my duty to myself, to my family, to my country, 
and to God. 



LETTER. 



* . - ■ •- (From the New- York Tribune.) 

Camargo, Mexico, Deccuiuer lUth, 1848. 

F. C, My Dear Sir : Your letter, addressing some inqui- 
ries to me, has just come to hand ; and I shall answer you in 
the same frank and friendly manner in which they are put. 

After some years of high-pressure life, I was glad once more 
to get to myself and the woods ; and, whether ruminating by 
day and night upon the wide-spread prairies of Texas, or pur- 
suing the buffalo upon the Brazos and Colorado, or lassoing 
the wild horse of the Nueces, a la Camanche, upon the " dis- 
puted" desert, I cared little for the newspapers, the vindication 
of friends, or the denunciations of enemies. Coming to Ca- 
margo, I see steamboats, and hear hells ; and newspapers force 
upon me the thought of j^oUtics once more. 

Since I left home I have written no letters touching my views 
upon political subjects ; and no one has had authority to speak 
for me. If 1 live to return I shall, in due time, take care to 
write and speak so as not to be misunderstood. 

In the mean time, however, I have no secrets; and I say in 
answer to your first incpiiry, " My opinions of the institution 
of Slavery are unchanged." Whetiier I shall continue " to edit 
the paper" or not, is problematical. It was never my original 
design to do so. 1 think I can be more efficient in " exerting" 
my "influence as heretofore for the establishment of freedom" 
in other ways. 

I have suffered enough to look charitably upon the " hasty 
rebuke of tjie bigoted and contracted." I am willing to trust 
to time and the unbiassed opinions of men for my final vindi- 
cation. 

In going into this war, I have not been impelled, as some of 
my apologists would have it, by Constitutional ardor, or South- 
ern education. Neither have I been lured by the vulgar ambi- 



478 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

tion of military glory. I would far rather have been Adams 
at the vindication of the Right of Petition, than Wellington 
at the battle of Waterloo. 

I wished to prove to the peojde of the South that 1 warred 
not upon tJieni^ but upon Slavery — that a man might hate 
slavery and denounce tyrants without being the enemy of his 
country. 

Besides, the instincts of self-preservation, or rather of national 
preservation, as well as history, teach me that a Constitutional 
declaration of war must be sustained by all jiarties. My ac- 
tion, therefore, is a corollary from the admission of the republican 
theory that a legiil majority mnst ride. Have my denouncers 
found a better theory ? 

I trust that, after a while, I shall convince those Avho have 
no interest in doing me injustice that I am not a "fanatic," for 
I have at all times stood by the broad landmarks which the 
laws of nations and custom and an enlightened morality have 
fixed as sacred from innovation ; nor an " egotist seeking 
temporary notoriety," for I have labored in obscure places, and 
been silent under reproach and calumny. F'ar less am I "a 
traitor to my country," for I have been ready to lay down my 
life at home and abroad, ever standing in her defence. 

I thank you and those most sincerely who have not ceased to 
have " implicit faith in the purity of my motives." I am proud 
in the reflection, that if fate denies me the good fortune " to 
return and aid" in the emancipation of our loved country, and 
the vindication of the universal liberties of men, the loftiest 
virtue known to the heroes of antiquity, " Mori pro patria," was 
imputed to me as my only crime. 

When I spoke against the Mexican war I said that I Avould 
fight it. I am here to redeem my pledge. I saw in anticipa- 
tion the noble dead whom all now mourn. The million taxes 
coming will arouse those who were insensible to national dis- 
honor and personal woe. The people already begin to ask, 
what is all this for? I venture to say that the millions upon 
whom the burden of this war rests, will not love slavery the 
more that it has caused it. It lives only by the will of the 
people : then speed the day when from the St. John's to the 
Rio Grande, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the sublime enun- 
ciation shall be made, America is free ! 

This, my undying aspiration, may be delusive. It may be 



LETTER FROM CAMARGO. 479 

that our fathers were " impracticable enthusiasts" — that there is 
no hope of the amelioration of human society — that virtue and 
justice may not be possible foundations of human happiness 
and national prosperity — that America is not destined to mark 
a new era in the history of mankind ;- -still we may cherish 
those sublime principles which have in days gone by and will 
ever in the course of time act as sheet anchors of safety, upon 
which cavillers themselves rest, when the storm of passion, 
crime, and woe rages apace. / 



SURRENDER OF ENCARNACION 



Letter from Cassius M. Clay. 

City of Mexico, July 15, 1847. 

To THE Editors of the Picayune : 

I have till now refrained from making anything pubhc touch- 
ing our capture. The probabihty that it might become the 
subject of legal investigation seemed to me to be a sufficient 
reason, among others, for silence. 

But since the merits of our surrender have become the topic 
of discussion, any farther deference to personal delicacy becomes 
criminal injustice to those who have a right to claim of me, 
their immediate commander, whatever protection my humble 
ability can afford them. I therefore merge the imputation of 
egotism and self-elation in the higher necessity of discharging 
a duty to the living who do not, and the dead, wlio cannot speak 
for themselves. 

If the failure of our superior officers to exchange us, after 
three successful battles, and the capture of many prisoners of 
war, is necessary to the public service, requiring the soldier 
never to surrender, but in all cases to lay down his life, with- 
out regard to the inequality of numbers or the resulting good 
of the sacrifice, then, without a murmur, I submit to the sen- 
tence. But if this policy becomes not general, and is not deem- 
ed usual and necessary in war, then, on the part of myself and 
my brave companions in arms, some of whom have gone from 
the loathsome prisons of Mexico, where praise nor blame can 
never reach them, I protest against it as a condemnation with- 
out a trial, and a penalty without a crime. 

You term the surrender at Encarnacion an "honorable ca- 
pitulation." It is so. The mass of mankind judge of things 
by their ajjparent success or failure. With them victory is 
glory, and defeat disgrace. But with enlightened minds it is 



SURRENDER AT ENCARNACION. 481 

better to deserve success than to win it. Yet paradoxical as it 
may seem, I say that the expedition to Encarnacion not only 
deserved, but achieved success. 

Lieut. Colonel Field, Surgeon Roberts, and Major Gaines will 
remember, that on the night preceding the adventure, it was 
urged that the reconnoitring party should consist of a large 
body, with artillery sufficient to hold the enemy in check till the 
arrival of reinforcements, or strong enough to letreat with its 
face to the foe. Or else it should be a small body, whose loss 
would not be materially felt by the army — a part of whom 
we might calculate from the superior speed of the horses and 
better address of the men, would return Avith the tidings of the 
enemy's position and force. The last alternative we were com- 
pelled to adopt, and the result was as foretold. We found the 
enemy, and sent hack word of his approach. Whether this 
reasoning be in accordance with military science or not, and 
how far the success of the glorious battle of Buena Vista was 
owing to this timely wai-ning, I leave abler strategists than 1 
to determine. 

But why anticipate capture ? The country through which 
we had to pass was a grass covered plain, shut out by moun- 
(aius. where there was no growth of wood to conceal us. We 
were compelled to go to fixed and well known places for water, 
surrounded by rauchcros, who were ever ready and not slow in 
giving timely notice of our approach. The night before reach- 
ing Encarnacion, we had resolved, according to the Spartan 
maxim, continually to change our camp to avoid surprise, and 
to move, if necessary, twice a night, to prevent the peasantry's 
knowing our whereabouts. 

That we camped two nights successively in Encarnacion, the 
cause in part of our capture, was rather the result of fortune 
tlian design on our part; for we had on the 22d advanced ten 
miles in the direction of Salido, intending to attack two hun- 
dred men whom we learned were stationed there ; but night, 
storm, and darkness coming on, we were compelled, having no 
guide, to return, against the protest of some and our previous 
rules of action, to Encarnacion. The idea of putting out picket 
guards in a plaii> of twenty miles diameter, intersected by roads 
in all directions, is absurd. And had a picket guard given an 
alarm in the night the result would have been the same, for we 

31 



482 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

would not have left our castle till morning', till we saw the ene- 
my, and knew their force. 

Seventy-one men and officers, all told, held General Minon 
and three thousand regular and veteran troops, as numbered by 
himself, at bay, from dawn till noon of the 23d day of January. 
Without half as many rounds of sliot as there were opposing 
foes, without water, without provisions, one hundred and ten 
miles from camp, without the remotest jirohahility of reinforce- 
ment, we unanimously determined to exact " the most honora- 
ble terms of capitulation known to nations," or sell our lives 
like men who held the faith that honor is the only necessity. 

Holding a Mexican chief of equal rank with our command- 
ant as a hostage. Major Gaines and General Minon concluded 
the following terms of capitulation : 

First. The most honorable treatment as prisoners of war 
known to nations. 

Second. Private property to be strictly respected. 

Third. Our Mexican guide to receive a fair trial in the civil 
courts. 

When we remember that Taylor fought at Buena Vista, at 
a liberal computation one io four, and had his hands full, and 
that we stood less than one to forty-tioo of the enemy, under 
their most gallant chief, I hazard the assertion that in the his- 
tory of the Mexican war there will have been no exhibition of 
nobler gallantry than was displayed at the capitulation of En- 
carnacion. 

Accept assurances of my lasting gratitude, that you have, 
with Mrs. Hemans, in the "Captive Knight,'' entered into a 
prisoner's griefs, and magnanimously vindicated our claims 
upon our country's justice ; for all that is generally deemed re- 
munerative in war falls to the lot of others, but 

"The worm, the canker, aud the gi'ief, 
Are ours aloue." 

Ever your ob't servant, 

C. M. Clay. 



LETTER. 



The Editors of the Christian Reflector : 

Gentlemen, — ^In your paper of January 6th instant, which 
you have forwarded me, you have commented freely upon my 
vohmteering in the Mexican war. The spirit of your remarks, 
though mixed with censure, commands my respect. Denuncia- 
tion from other quarters has also reached me, which I regard 
with philosophic indifference. Neither flattery nor denunciation, 
at home or abroad, shall move me from the advocacy of such 
principles as I choose to advocate, nor the use of such means as 
I choose to use, for their ultimate success. I am a private man 
— a candidate for no office : I ask no man for his vote, or his 
purse. In the discharge of my duty as a citizen of a republic, 
I have attempted to be intelligent ; I certainly have labored. 
I have spent my money and my time, foregone tolerable chances 
of elevation to office, suffered somewhat in feeling, in name, and 
in person, in vindicating principles — surely, I ought to be honest. 
If any man knows of any proofs of integrity and sincerity which 
1 have not yet given, and will write them down, I will attempt 
them : I am not too old yet to learn, nor too conceited to be 
advised. In attempting to overthrow slavery, I expected to meet 
the ill-will and violence of those who were gainers by slavery. 
I?ut to find those who profess to be anti-slavery men, and who 
are certainly interested in the establishment of liberty in Ame- 
rica, watching my every word and act, with uncompromising 
hatred and denunciation, astounds me. No doubt some who 
hate the JSouth, who have calculated the cost of the Union, and 
desire its dissolution, are disappointed in not finding me prepared 
to forget, that the slaves, the masters, and the non-slaveholders 
of the South, by such an event, would be involved perhaps in 
one common ruin. I cciiie not to destroy, but to save. If 
liberty and this Union cannot co-exist, then I confess I am in 
despair. If with all our natural^ social, and political advantages, 
some of which can never be renewed in all coining time, we 



484 THE WPilTINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

cannot cany out the principles of 1776, then I confess I have 
no hope of their uhimate trimnph. 

What is the basis of Repubhcanism ? That the majority, in 
constitutional form, rule. That the end of government is to 
secure the rights of all, minorities as well as majorities. But 
suppose the imperfections of humanity cause government to 
fall short of the protection of all the citizens, what are you to 
do? Give it all up in despair and return to anarchy or despot- 
ism ? Surely not. What then ? Simply if we cannot do as 
we the minority please, let the majority do as they please. 
Have you. gentlemen, found a better rule of action than this ? 
Have you knowingly and in good faith entered into the partner- 
ship of the American government? You have agreed to play ; 
you have put up the stakes ; you have lost. What say you ? 
will you pay up ? A grumbles, and swears, and pays up : B 
pays up with a gentlemanly grace. W^hich is the honest man, 
A, or B? You and I and the American people have formed 
this governmental partnership ; we have agreed to play ; we 
have put up the stakes ; we have knowingly said, whatever the 
legal majorities enact, that we will abide by. Congress says 
there shall be war with Mexico : we have said we are opposed 
to war with Mexico : we have done our duty: we have played 
the game ; and have lost. Shall we pay ? I say, yes : you 
say, no. " Logic" brings us just to this point : shall we do 
what we agreed to do ? You say no : I say yes. There is 
an end of it. You must either go with the government, or 
dissolve the government. For my part, great evils as were the 
Texas iniquity and the Mexican war, they were yet more suf- 
ferable than I'evolution. There is no middle ground. If you 
refuse to pay when you lose, there is an end of all playing. 
If you refuse to carry out the enactments of the government, 
then there is an end of all government. AVell, the regular army 
ought to fight : not you— a volunteer. Why the regular? Be- 
cause he is paid for it ? Shall a man be excused for the violation 
of a principle because he \sj}aid7 If I committed a crime in 
joining the army, then did every soldier who believed the war 
unjust commit the same crime. If I committed a crime in going 
to the war, then did every man in America denying the justice 
of the war, who paid taxes, or gave aid and comfort to the 
army, commit the same crime. 

If there was a man opposing the justice of the war, who did 



LETTER TO THE CHRISTIAN REFLECTOR. 485 

not use all the energies and means, which, after providing for 
liimself and his, he owes to universal man, in aid of the IMexi- 
cans, and against the American army, that man connnitted the 
same crime. I go boldly a step further ; every man, believing 
the war unjust, unless a non-resistant, who did not take up 
arms against the Americans, and who was not ready to peril 
his life in the Mexican cause, committed the same crime. Let 
impartial reason, then, determine who has been the victim of 
" logic," you, or I. Once more. The jury is the legal creature 
of government: the prisoner has undergone a fair trial : he is 
condemned to death. You think the man innocent : or you are 
opposed to capital punishment : will you hang him 7 If you 
think with me, you will : if not, you will go guilty away, and 
let me do it. You are a coward in such case. I say, either 
hang him, or help him. 

Once more. Congress lays a tariff upon foreign sugar : it 
robs you to sustain slave-labor. Will you pay? You have 
never thought of doing otherwise. Then you have committed 
the same crime for which I am denounced. Will I pay it? 
Yes. Because it is the laio. But, say you, I pay it, because I 
cannot help it. Indeed ! There was in Boston once a set of 
men, who, wlien an unjust tax was laid upon them, said, we 
will die, but pay no tax. AYhich were the nobler, you or your 
ancestors ? " Logic" places you in the dilemma of denouncing 
your ancestors : or by admitting that the cases are dissimilar, 
you lose your argument. 

In a republic, it is the duty of every one to advocate what he 
deems right : but when the public will has been declared in legal 
form, tliough it be opposed to his, we ought in good faith to 
carry it out, dissolve the government — or leave the country. It 
does not Ibllow that you, or thousands of others, ouglit to have 
gone to the war. You and they may have been more useful in 
other vocations. But you, and every other man in this republic 
who votes or partakes of its protection, should have aided and 
abetted me and the army who did war, until the proper authori- 
ties should have concluded a peace, or the public legal will have 
changed. It suited my temperament to play the soldier : yours 
to be tax-payer. I trust we have both discharged our whole 
duty. In going to the war, then, it was possible to have been 
consistently an anti-slavery man. My motives, then, and not 
the act^ must determine my consistency. Now long before the 



486 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

declaration of war, I avowed in public speeches in the North, 
that I would go to it. Why was I not then denounced ? The 
earnestness that I displayed in this cause gave me the reputation 
of being a fanatic. The untold woes which have come upon 
us by the annexation of Texas, were long since seen by me. 
J would that I had possessed eloquence equal to the infinite 
issue — that our nation had been spared her great crime — that 
the Constitution of my country were yet unbroken — that our 
public faith were yet inviolate — that these millions of treasure 
had been spent in the liberation of the children of our own soil — - 
that the blood of the great dead had not been shed in vain — that 
the tears of widows and orphans had not moistened so many 
hearths, now desolate for ever ! 

Believing with Channing, that the triumphs of war are third 
rate in the scale of human greatness, and that even then to be 
glorious, they must be just, it seems hardly possible that I should 
have been seduced from the path of duty by the " mad spirit of 
war." If I was ambitious, there was some peculiarity in my 
taste : they who reaped the laurels of the war, sought other 
places than the rank's, in which to win fame. With so many 
inducements to ignoble ease — with the often avowed sentiment 
that the mere desire for military glory was a vulgar ambition, 
it seems hardly possible that I was " intoxicated with the mad 
spirit of war." I said to the people of Fayette, I go to this war 
with my political opinions unchanged. I wrote to the Tribune, 
from Camargo, " my opinions are unchanged." Once more on 
my native soil, after long suffering in a cause, which I did all 
possible in the nature of things to avoid, I say to the same 
people, my opinions are unchanged. Is it, then, so hard a thing 
to believe in the honesty of a man with all these proofs of in- 
tegrity graven on the annals of the country ? Are men engaged 
in a common cause to be thus trammeled by narrow views of 
means ? So long as one is believed to be honest, and right in 
the main, is he to be forced to look through the brazen specta- 
cles of every madman who has set up his bedroom Utopia? 
Have I one set of opinions for the North, and another for the 
South? If I love the South, and because I love her would 
make her free, am I not allowed to convince her that it is slavery 
which I hate, not her people ? Must I stand by the inalienable 
duties which birthplace imposes upon the true of all lands — to 
struggle for a higher destiny — or must I flee from the hard and 



LETTER TO THE CHRISTIAN REFLECTOR. 487 

unwilling task, and become in other countries a pensioner upon 
the blood-bought liberties of nobler men ? Have I omnipotence 
to speak vitality into a dying community ? or must I intelligently 
use the means of influencing their wills, that they may be con- 
vinced and be saved ? 

I have done. There is a class of men in tlie North whose 
good opinion I am unwilling to lose, who cannot just now 
appreciate my position. These, this letter, and my future con- 
duct, will, I trust, make my friends. There is another class 
who have no intention now, or hereafter, to do me justice. Our 
aims are not, and never can be the same. For them I have 
no reproaches. Bitter words are to be used only by those who 
have nothing to extenuate in the difficult drama of hfe. I am 
not of them : I have never assumed to be infalUhle. As a man, 
I have never attempted more than a balance sheet in morals. 
But as a politician, in degenerate times, I have borne an 7insul- 
lied banner : my liighest ambition, my holiest hope is, that it 
may at last be triumphant— that as it is now, so may it be 
eternallv the same. 

CM. CLAY. 

Lexington^ 1847. . . " , 



(From the Louisville Examiner.) 

C. M. Clay. 

The friends of freedom will be glad to hear again from one 
of its truest champions. Unchanged in mind and purpose, he 
is fired by as holy a zeal for the good cause as man ever felt. 

His reception in Kentucky has been of the warmest charac- 
ter. At Lexington, it was a grand fete. All parties and all 
classes joined to meet and greet Cassius M. Clay. The truth 
is, the people love and respect the man. 

Nor let any one suppose that this results from his military 
services ! He had no opportunity to win warrior fame. It was 
the spirit of generosity and self-sacrifice — the remembrance of 
his fight in a holier battle than war ever witnessed — which 
bade the people liail his return home with so wide and earnest 
an enthusiasm. 

And it is a good omen — this honorable acknowledgment of 
past injustice, and shaking of hands over past divisions. It 
shows tJiat the hour is when men may consider the right, and 
struggle honestly for it. Let us welcome this change as the 
dawn of a better day, and labor together to hasten its full and 
more glorious opening. 



(For the Examiner.) 

To THE Subscribers op the True American. 

Compatriots: — The True American has ceased to exist ; but 
it was not in vain that it was established by me, and so liber- 
ally sustained by you. 

The true friends of the South were not behind their brothers 
of the free states in feeling the evils of slavery. Not content 
with infecting the pulpit, the legislative liall, and the social cir- 
cle, it breathed upon the liberty of the press, and despairing 



CIRCULAK. 489 

silence sat upon millions. Here and there, at long intervals, 
some one more daring than the rest gave utterance to the holiest 
instincts of nature, and spoke out against the giant curse. It 
was but a momentary ripple on a vast sea, whose waters again 
subsided into more than original stagnation. 

In all the South there was not a single press where the right 
coidd be vindicated, or calm reasoning allowed. In the year 
1845 I ventured single-handed into this fearful contest. Hold- 
ing in mind the examples of those who in all ages had vindi- 
cated the liberties of men, I had counted the cost, and was pre- 
pared for the catastrophe. 

The American people know the result. The C4od of battles 
has stood by the right. The liberty of the press is, for the 
fust time since 1776, established in the South. Not only in 
my own state, but in the national capital and divers other 
places, " men may freely speak and write upon any subject 
whatever," being responsible only to the laws. 

The "Examiner" has succeeded the "True American." 
My detention in a Mexican prison delayed my return longer 
than was anticipated ; the editor of the " Examiner " has fore- 
stalled my wishes, and is now fulfilling all my obligations to 
my subscribers by substituting his paper for mine. Those who 
have seen both papers will not regret the change. I ask for 
him the continuation of that generous support in that cause 
which was in me shown dear to so many noble Americans. 
The first scene in the drama is accomplished ; brighter hopes 
dawn upon Kentucky and the American republic. The extra- 
ordinary events at home and abroad for the last few years have 
aroused the consciences and startled the minds of millions. Go 
read Guizot's History of Civilization, and take courage. Faith 
in the progress of mankind is no longer the dream of 
^'' fanatics P 

The spirit of large and liberal inquiry and consequent ame- 
lioration is moving all nations. The land of '76 cannot long 
follow in the unwilling wake of transatlantic despotism in se- 
curing the liberties of men. A great destiny awaits us. 
America will yet be free ! \ 

Cassius M. Clay. 
Lexington, Ky., Dec. ISth, 1847. 



SPEECH OF COL. W. H. CAPERTON, 

AT RICHMOND, KY. 



February 7th, 1848. 

Captain Clay : 

As the. organ of your old neighbors and friends of your 
native county, I congratulate you on your return to your home 
and to your family. This very large assembly has come out to 
extend to you a hearty welcome. These, your friends, never 
doubted your patriotism, or the purity of the motives which in- 
fluenced you to volunteer your services to fight the battles of 
your country. From the moment you set out for Mexico, they 
took the deepest interest in your welfare, and kept a constant 
eye on your movements. They heard with deep regret of your 
captivity. They felt for you the greatest sympathy. Long 
before you were released from your galling captivity, they heard 
through your brother captives of your noble and generous con- 
duct towards your soldiers. They have informed us, that at 
the most critical period of your captivity, a bloody order was 
given by the commander of the Mexican forces, to put to imme- 
diate death those under your command, and that you, with a 
magnanimity and self-devotion never siu-passed, presented your- 
self a victim to appease this cruel thirst for blood, and exclaimed, 
" Don't kill the men, they are innocent, I only am responsible." 
And they heard, too, sir, that with remarkable promptness and 
presence of mind, you ordered your men to prostrate themselves 
upon the ground, and that this order having been promptly 
obeyed, enabled you to intercede with the Mexican commander 
so as to save your own life and that of your soldiers. This 
conduct of yours, this self-devotion, challenges our highest ad- 
miration, and has electrified every patriotic bosom in the whole 
country. This single act, as great as it was, does not stand 
alone, as we are informed by your fellow-prisoners. They in- 
form us, that you shared your purse with them ; then sold your 



SrEECH AT RICHMOND. 491 

mule, and your horse, and divided the proceeds to the last cent ; 
and then, sir, that you shared your clothes with your soldiers. 

Although in thus placing yourself between the Mexican lance 
and your soldiers, and by these disinterested acts of kindness 
and benevolence to your men, you may not have gained laurels 
as bright and dazzling as those won on the field of battle in 
storming a battery, or leading out a sortie, yet, sir, they will 
live longer and fresher in the memory of your countrymen, than 
any fame acquired in the heat and excitement of battle. 

Whilst undergoing your loathsome imprisonment, your coun- 
trymen were gaining brilliant and unparalleled victories over 
your captors. To be deprived of sharing in these stirring events, 
was, we are sure, chafing to your proud spirit. None of these 
great victories, however, restored you to your liberty^ — this you 
negotiated yourself, stipulating with the enemy, if the terms 
you made were not confirmed by the commander of the Ameri- 
can forces, that you would voluntarily return a prisoner to the 
enemy's camp. They were confirmed, and you are again re- 
stored to your family and your friends. 

From our long and intimate acquaintance, it is a source of 
high gratification to me, that I am the organ of my fellow-citi- 
zens in extending to you this welcome. In conclusion, sir, I 
again, in behalf of these, your friends, congratulate you on your 
return to your home, yovn- family, and your native county. Old 
Madison is proud of you as one of her sons, and you are doubly 
welcome among us. 



C. M. CLAY'S REPLY. 

Col. Caperton, Ladies, and Fellow^ Citiizens : 

I am not insensible to appreciation from any portion of my 
countrymen, but to be thus remembered and thus welcomed 
here in the home of my nativity and youth, and early manhood, 
touches me deeply and gratefully. But doubly grateful, sir, are 
these kind words coming from one whom I have so long inti- 
mately cherished as a sincere and abiding friend. If I have 
been ambitious of gaining your confidence and esteem, my 
countrymen, my hopes and aspirations are accomplished. Be- 



492 THE ^VRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

tween ns, there is no place for form and ceremony ; I am proud 
of the heaitfeh expressions of sympathy and congratulation of 
you who have known me longest and best ; I am amply re- 
warded for all the hardships and dangers of the past. 

Some of you know that no man in America more opposed 
the Mexican war than I. But when it was legitimated by 
the constitutional will of the jjeople — when my country called 
for help — as a common soldier, I entered the ranks. Unmerited 
praise is to me the severest censure ; I will not deny, therefore, 
that whilst I was prepared with my blanket, and tin cup, and 
knapsack, I expected a higher position. I thought that I had 
jiersonal claims upon the Governor of Kentucky, for a field 
appointment : whilst my ability to fill such a place was, I flat- 
tered myself, in no quarter denied. In the discharge of my dut?/, 
in peace or war, I trust that I look not to personal suffering ; 
with some mortification of spirit, but with unshaken purpose, I 
took post in the ranks. Lieutenant J. S. Jackson, then 
captain of the " Old Infantry," with a magnanimity of soul 
rarely equalled in all time, resigned his place, and took the 
ranks : and I was unanimously elected captain. Such self- 
sacrifice of one gallant spirit, was more gratifying to my ambi- 
tion than if I had worn the proudest badges of honor tliat go- 
vernor or president can bestow upon those who worship not at 
the shrine of truth, but of poiver. That enmity which saw 
me cut off from all hopes of elevation to civil offices, which had 
destroyed my property, calumniated my reputation, and sub- 
jected my person and life to legalized outlawry, was still in- 
satiate, and with fiendish rancour pursued me still. They 
attempted to dissolve my company, trusting once more to reduce 
me to the ranks, where they hoped that the hardships of the 
camp and climate, would accomplish what violence had failed 
to effect, and that death would free them from one whose vindi- 
cation of justice and humanity had made "a thorn in the 
king's side." A thing before unheard of, civil opinions were at- 
tempted to disqualify me for military promotion. Handbills de- 
nouncing me, after tbe stereotyped manner, Avere freely circu- 
lated at home, and sent to the Heads of Departments at Wash- 
ington, to the President, and to the officers of the invading army 
in Mexico. 

Thanks to the great-souled army of America, such contempti- 
ble malice was duly estimated. Before I arrived at San Anto- 



SPEECH AT RICHMOND. . 493 

nio de Bejar, Gen. Wool had determined to detach me from the 
Kentucky regiment, then lying at Lavaca, and destined to Gen. 
Taylor's column, where it was supposed the lighting was all 
over, after the battle of Monterey, and take my company with 
him to Chihuahua. Nothing but the sickness of my men at 
Lavaca prevented this design. The attempt to prejudice me at 
home, by asserting that I had gone to San Antonio, under pre- 
tence of a buffalo hunt, to intrigue with Gen. Wool, was one 
more link only in the system of calumny, which will pursue me 
through life, or so long as I vindicate the true interests of Ken- 
tucky. When I left the regiment at Crockett, their point of 
destination was San Antonio! So a lie cannot always live! 
At Camargo General Patterson once more offered, voluntarily 
to take my company with him to Tampico, which I declined. 
By my request, tliat true-souled old soldier, General Taylor, 
ordered me up to the head of the column at Saltillo, when I 
was put on severe duty at an advanced post, to watch the ap- 
proach of the enemy, by Gen. Butler. Thus every general, un- 
der whose command I came, showed a magnanimous disposi- 
tion lo allow me, with my very insignificant command, every 
possible chance of distinction. But fortune w^as against me. 
To relieve the army from the dangers and unpleasant anticipa- 
tions of surprise, for it was reported continually that Santa Anna 
was advancing in force, the gallant Jno, P. Gaines volunteered 
to find the enemy at all hazards, if he was on the road from 
San Luis Potosi to Saltillo. He did me the honor once more to 
take me as his commanding captain. The event of the sur- 
render of Encarnacion is to you well-known. The grounds of 
defence, upon which that act rests, will be found in my letter to 
the New Orleans Picayune. That seventy-one men and 
officers should hold three thousand regular Mexican cavalry at 
bay from light till noon, and finally make terms of the most 
honorable treatment, presents a spectacle of the moral sublime, 
unsurpassed liy the heroism of the bloodiest battles. In send- 
ing back Captain Henry, through eighty armed lancers, one 
hundred and fifty miles from camp, with three thousand ene- 
mies in the rear, was displayed a rare feat of individual daring, 
and the object of our mission accomplished. Your allusion to 
my action on that occasion, and the testimony of my fellow-pris- 
oners generally, as well as the previous comments of some others, 
induce me here to relate the exact particulars of that adven- 



494 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

ture. The soldiers, with Captain Uanley, and the subordinate 
officers, were on foot, marching by two's. Major Gaines, and 
Borland, Captain Henry, and myself, were on horseback at the 
head of the column. The Mexican lancers mounted, were in 
open files on both sides of the soldiers, with a van and rear 
guard. Captain H., having been taken prisoner at Mier, and 
having escaped from the castle of Perote, and being recognised 
by the Mexicans, feared that he would be put to death, as 
the expedition to Mier was disavowed by Texas. Major Gaines 
thought there was no danger of his life, but permitted Henry 
to change horses with him, as the two Majors only had been al- 
lowed to retain their American horses. Henry also asked my 
advice : I agreed with him that his life was in imminent peril 
— told him I should be glad for our friends to know^ of the ad- 
vance of the army — but declined urging him one way or the 
other in an affair of so much danger, Henry agreed, at length, 
to run. T told Capt. H. to speak low, as the Mexican lieute- 
nant, I w^as convinced, understood English, although he denied 
all knowledge of the language. This the lieutenant overheard, 
and reported it to Col. Sambranino, the commanding officer of 
the guard. He immediately ordered Messrs. Gaines and Bor- 
land, under a strong guard, ahead, uncovered his pistols, and 
commanded the guard to open the ranks, so as to be out of arm's 
reach of our men. Seeing their preparations, we supposed the 
time had come for Capt. H.'s death, and he, riding down the 
ranks, under pretence of arranging the men by twos, according 
to order, gave spurs to his horse, and escaped. The Colonel 
supposed that we were plotting to rise upon the guard, and 
Henry's running, confirmed him in the opinion. He ordered the 
lancers to charge : which they promptly obeyed — having retired be- 
fore far enough to allow some momentum in the advance. I was 
alone, and about twenty yards ahead, I rode back and ordered 
the men to lie dov/n, which they promptly did — told the Colonel 
they were innocent — that I only was responsible. He then told 
three lancers to lance me ! One at each side and one in the 
rear, he with his pistol at my l)reast, and the lieutenant with 
his sabre also drawn, placed me in no very agreeable attitude. 
Seeing that the soldiers were safe, as they began to tie them. I 
assure you that I was not slow in talking in my OAvn defence — 
I avowed that I knew of H.'s design to escape — that I had not 
advised him one wav or the other — that he had a li'^ht to act 



SPEECH AT RICHMOND. 495 

independently, and, by ihe laws of war, I could not be responsi- 
ble for another's act — that there was no intention to rise upon 
the guard — that to kill me would be murder — that I \\as of 
noble family at home— and that my death would be amply 
avenged by my countrymen. Believing, no doubt, from my 
manner, that I told the truth, they spared my life. They tied 
me for a few moments — then released me, when the Colonel 
embraced me, and asked my pardon for the indignity. They 
released the officers who were on foot, and also tied that night, 
but kept the soldiers tied for two days longer. That the lives 
of my command were saved by my presence of mind, and frank 
confession, I honestly believe. I admit, to use the language of 

my friend, Col. C s, that if " I was not scared, I stood in 

great bodily apprehension." But, to be serious, whatever fears 
of death I might have had, I am proud to say, never out- 
weighed my sense of truth and justice. Whatever, then, my 
enemies shall deduct from my courage, they must place to the 
credit of my superior moral powers, and become, unconsciously, 
my loftiest eulogists. Our long and painful march to San Luis 
Potosi, and thence to Mexico, our imprisonment, and final re- 
lease, are well-known. It is but just to the Mexicans to say, 
that in allowing our soldiers eighteen' cents a day, they gave 
them the same that they give their own soldiers, who do not 
require half as much food as our own men, whilst our being 
strangers prevented us from buying as much food, with the 
same money. The hardships of the route through the desert, 
were shared by their own soldiers. In a word, there were many 
instances of Spanish generosity during our captivity, and our 
hardships were not unreasonable, when we remember that their 
own men were starving, in the defence of their homes and their 
religion. 

That Santa Anna was sincerely courteous and full of fair 
promises, as he was going on " to drive Taylor over the Sabine," 
seems natural : that he should have broken all his engagements 
with us afterwards, can only be accounted for upon the supposi- 
tion that he wished to hold us as hostages for his safety, in case 
he fell into our hands. The Governor of Mexico, at Toluca, is 
entitled to our lasting gratitude for sending us to Scott on 
parole, the man who could thus trust others, is himself, of neces- 
sity of a great and noble soul. 

In giving pubhc expressions of thanks to Gen. Worth, for his 



496 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

solicitude in our behalf, we did not intend to reflect upon other 
officers, some of whom did display the same remembrance of 
us. So far as I was concerned I did not blame Gen. Scott for 
any dereliction of duty. It was not to be supposed that the 
General-in-chief had much time to think of the release of a few 
hundred men. His failure to mention Santa Anna's breach of 
the ninth article, however, was to us a sore mortification. Al- 
though his efforts for our liberation were such as, perhaps, are 
usual in such cases, it seemed to us, who were continually 
threatened with assassination, that we were neglected : and it 
was some consolation to our pride to know that to ourselves 
only we owed our own liberation at last. 

I have thus ventured here among you, my neighbors and 
friends, to indulge in these personal adventures ; because, while 
on the one hand I am unwilling to receive credit for more than 
I deserve, on the other I have done too little in the military way 
to submit to unjust detraction. And justice to my noble com- 
panions in arms leads me freely to declare, that they who died 
in the swamps and deserts of Texas, in the loathsome prisons 
of Mexico, and in the discharge of the every-day duties of the 
camp, deserve the same hold on the memory and gratitude of 
their countrymen, as they who nobly laid down their lives on 
the field of battle. 

It is no doubt expected of me to give some ideas of Mexico, 
and the present war. Mexico extends from about latitude 16'*' 
north to 42*^, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific ; and was 
in extent, before the loss of Texas, about as large as the United 
States. It embraces all the climates of all the world : and rises 
in temperature from the tropical plains of Vera Cruz and Aca- 
pulco to the regions of perpetual snow. The Rocky mountains, 
which separate us from Oregon, extend through all Mexico : 
and her whole surface is composed of table lands and moun- 
tains, which rise in steps from the gulf, and the Rio Grande, to 
the highest level ; and then descend in regular gradation once 
more to the Pacific. She has no navigable streams, and the 
mountains and arid plains compose, I should imagine, nine- 
tenths of the whole territory. It is now three hundred years 
since the Spanish conquest, and her population has long since 
reached that barrier where nature imposes eternal obstacles to 
further progress — where the whole products of the earth are 
economically consumed by the people. No doubt better modes 



SPEECH AT RICHMOND. 497 

of agriculture would increase her population, but at present, to 
use the language of Malthus, she has reached the j^oint of sub- 
sistence. It is true, that the remote provinces of California and 
New Mexico, and those bordering upon the Rio Grande, and 
subject to Indian invasion, contain some uncultivated lands ; 
but the proposition, as above stated, apphes to the mass of 
Mexico. For, in the greater portion of the whole republic, 
women and children may be seen picking up grains of corn in 
the highways ; and the rinds of fruit thrown in the streets are 
immediately seized and consumed. So soon as you cross the 
Rio Grande you feel yourself in a foreign land. Mexico has no 
forests. It is true, that along the streams and on the mountain 
tops there are trees ; but you are struck with this great charac- 
teristic, that the land is bald of trees. The numerous varieties 
of the cactus of all sizes, intermixed with palmetto, stunted or 
long grass, covers the whole land. You are among a people of 
a novel color and a strange language. The very birds, and 
beasts, and dogs, seem different. The partridge, the lark, the 
blackbird, differ in size and plumage, and sing differently from 
ours. The buildings are of Moorish and Spanish build. The 
goats and the sheep feed together. The bricks ai^e of clay and 
straw, sun-dried. The women go with earthern vessels to the 
well, just as Rachael was seen of old in the time of the Patri- 
archs of Judea. The roofs of the houses are flat and places of 
recreation : and the people wear sandals as in the East, in olden 
time. Wheat, Indian corn, and herds of cattle, sheep, and goats, 
and the banana, and red pepper, and garlic, and onions, are the 
principal sources of subsistence. The products of the mines 
are the principal articles of foreign exchange, added to woods, 
besides tallow and cochineal. 

The extreme dryness of Mexico makes irrigation necessary 
in most of the country ; and the scarcity of water, and the habits 
of the people, collect the inhabitants into cities or villages. The 
land itself is owned by a few large proprietors ; not the least of 
whom are the priests. The great mass of the people are serfs, 
with but few more rights than American slaves. It is true, that 
the children of serfs are not of necessity also serfs, but debt 
brings slavery, and the wages allowed by law almost alwa3fs 
perpetuate it. Here^ then., is the secret of the S7cccess of our 
arms. I conversed freely with the tenantry and soldiers in all 
Mexico, and where they are not filled with religious enthusiasm 
32 



498 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

against us, they say they care not who rule them. American, 
or Mexican masters. If all the Mexican soldiers were freeholders 
and freemen, not one of all the American army could escape 
from her borders. The soldiers are caught up in the haciendas 
and the streets of towns, by force confined in some prison, or 
monastery, there drilled, clothed, armed, and then sent on to the 
regular army. Such men avow their resolution to desert, or 
run, on the first occasion. Of near a thousand soldiers, sent 
from Toluca to the aid of Santa Anna at Mexico, not one hun- 
dred stood the battle. 

The whole people do not exceed eight millions, of these about 
two millions are white and mixed blood, the remainder are na- 
tive Indians. I never, in all Mexico, with the exception of 
foreigners in the capital, saw a single white man at work. 
Wherever there is slavery, there is labor dishonorable ; it is 
more creditable to rob than to work ! Yet Mexico surpasses 
the slave states of America in manufactures ! As Rome was 
overrun by the Barbarians, so is Mexico now by the Ameri- 
cans ; the slaves will not fight — the masters are too few to de- 
fend the country. Bigotry of religion has abased the mind — 
the corruptions of the church have destroyed the morals of the 
people— the oppressions of the masters have exhausted the 
lands. Mexico is decreasing in population and resources. Since 
her independence, her revenues are falling off— her villages are de- 
caying — her public works falling to ruin. She has lived by the 
sword — she must perish by the sword. The time for her to 
die has come ! Yet, like South Carolina, she talks large. She 
whipped Spain — Spain whipped France — France the world — 
and of consequence, Mexico is the mistress of the world ! Yet, 
fifty thousand Americans conquer eight millions of souls ! The 
clergy plunder the people — the army now begin to plunder the 
clergy — whilst independent robbers begin to plunder the govern- 
ment, the clergy, and the people. Such is the fearful retribu- 
tion of nature's violated laws. Seeing Texas, that it was a 
lovely land, we coveted our neighbor's goods— seeing the weak- 
ness of Mexico, we took it by force. Though a whig, I do not 
stand here as a partizan. I shall speak with the freedom of 
history. I have no sympathy with this late outcry against 
President Polk, as bringing on this war. I shall do the Presi- 
dent the justice to say, that in all Mexico I never heard the first 
man allege the march of Taylor to the Rio Grande, as the 



SPEECH AT RICHMOND. 499 

cause of offence, or of the war. I am not going- to debate the worn 
out topic of the annexation of Texas — the melancholy and 
disgraceful causes that led to the consummation of the iniquity. 
All America knew that foreign territory could not be acquired, 
except by treaty — and a treaty could only be made by the 
Senate and President. But slavery demanded a sacrifice 
of the Constitution : it was made then, it always has been, and 
always will be made, so long as the slave power rules this na- 
tion. In taking Texas, you took the war. So said the Mexi- 
can Minister, so said Houston, President of Texas, so said con- 
ventions of several sovereign states, so said common sense. 
That actual hostilities might have been avoided by the Presi- 
dent, confining the army to the left bank of the Nueces, or to 
Corpus Christi even, I have not the least doubt. But the good- 
natured President, no doubt, thought a little more robbery was all 
right. Texas claimed to the Rio Grande. I'll take the Rio Grande, 
and then, being in possession, will hold it with a peace. What 
was the claim of Texas to the once province of Mexico ? Con- 
quest, and no other. How far did she conquer? To the 
Nueces, and no further. Her expedition to Santa Fe and Mier, 
both signally failed. San Patricio is on the east bank of the 
Nueces. I have been there myself — there is not a single house 
or improvement on its west side ! I say, when our army marched 
into the Mexican territory, and planted her batteries, bearing 
upon the Plaza of Matamoras, amidst the people fleeing from 
their cotton and sugar fields, that the President of the United 
States made actual war upon Mexico. Every man in America 
knows this to be true. Will a lie live for ever ? The Presi- 
dent, no doubt, usurped power belonging only to Congress, but 
Congress had just usurped power belonging to the Senate — the 
Constitution had been overthrown. The nation is corrupt — to 
talk of impeachment is worse than nonsense. Let the guiltless 
throw the first stone! The National Intelligencer has found 
out that Mr. Polk is a despot, and our government a despotism ! 
Indeed ! When (he liberty of the press was attempted to be 
overthrown in Kentucky, he closed his columns to my defence, 
but he allowed a Paris correspondent to apologize for the act, 
by quoting the despotisms of Europe ! And now he begins to 
find out that there is danger of despotism in these States ! Sa- 
gacious editor ! Far-seeing patriot ! Ten thousand men have 
been slain — one hundred millions of money have been spent 



500 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

— a Standing army of one hundred thousand men is asked 
for — the purse and person of the reviewer are in danger ! What 
shall be done? Why — send for Mr. Walsh ! These things are 
connnon in Europe ! 

But we are at war, how shall we get out of it ? Do you want 
more land ? The appetite of the great slave champion himself is 
glutted at last ? Mr. Thompson says that slavery cannot ex- 
tend into Mexico. Why? They have there reached that delight- 
ful condition, upon which Southern patriots love to dwell. i'Vee 
laboi' is at the starving point. Slave labor won't pay — it can- 
not therefore exist. Mexico can't help us — she may cherish 
some recollections of by whom it was, that she was robbed of a 
province as large as France. Therefore Mr. Calhoun begins 
to perceive danger to our republican institutions ! 

Texas cannot claim beyond the Nueces. If more is ac- 
quired, it is by my blood and treasure, by your blood and treasure 
— it is ours — not one foot belongs to Texas. It is free territory 
—free under the Constitution of the United States. It needs 
110 Wilmot proviso. Will the North be for ever thus gulled. Is 
she knave, or fool? 

Total annexation ! We w^ant to extend free institutions over 
poor Mexico, we want to give the gospel to the miserable heathen ! 
Is the spirit of hypocritical and fiendish propagandism never to 
die? You have lost ten thousand men and one hundred mil- 
lions of money, and have possession of some four or five of the 
most insignificant of the twenty-four Mexican states ! Will you 
work the sum? Have you counted the cost of this so great 
philanthropy ? Can you levy the expenses of the war from 
the duties at the seaports, when commerce has ceased ? Will 
the mines be w^orked when plunder stands with greedy hands 
to seize the accumulations of labor ? Will you forage on the 
enemy? Will one man sow, when another reaps? Let me 
tell you, all hopes of drawing revenue from Mexico are delu- 
sive. Levy contribution, forage, distress the enemy, compel a 
peace ! A neighbor of mine learned that sheep would kill 
briars. After a time, I said " Neighbor, how went the experi- 
ment? did you kill the briars ?" '-Oh yes," said he, '^buf they 
killed the sheep too!''' If eight millions of people could be 
united to us on equal terms, enjoying security of property, free- 
dom of the press and of religion, it might well compensate for 
the blood which has been spilt, the desolation of farms and vil- 



SPEECH AT RICHxMOND. 501 

lag-es, the pangs and tears of widows and orphans, the myriad 
calamities which the war here and in Mexico brings in its train. 
But will it be done? The past gives no assurances of such 
things. The South has shown no such greatness of soul ; she 
has not done for the children of her own soil what she proposes 
to ahens of other lands. The North has given us no such evi- 
dence of independence of spirit. She has. on all occasions 
when a deed of oppression was to be done, been ready to calcu- 
late how many coppers it would bring into her coffers. Give 
her the price of blood, and she is always contemptibly tame. 

A line of defence seems full of similar objections to a war 
" in the vitals " of the country. It would take nearly the same 
number of troops ; deprive us of the little help we may now re- 
ceive from levies upon the enemy, whilst it would allow concen- 
tration of their forces and attack upon us in detail. A total 
withdrawal of the army east of the Nueces river seems to be 
puerile and absurd. If Mr. Clay had taken the ground of his 
Lexington speech before the last presidential election, we might 
have been saved from this war. But it comes too late. The 
moral power of the nation is weaker now than it was then. 
The lives of our people have been sacrificed, our treasure has 
been expended. I agree that in an unjust war, we cannot claim 
indemnity for our own expenditures. But then Mexico owes 
us from three to five millions of money, on the old score. She 
has accumulated upon us robbery and insult ; and now, when 
we have the power to right ourselves, and all the evils of war 
are accomplished, we must grow suddenly " magnanimous ! " 

I shall not speak of the beauties of California, of the ports of 
San Diego and San Francisco ; nor of the south pass over the 
Rocky Mountains, which leads through present Mexican terri- 
tory ; nor of the mines of New Mexico, nor of the navigation 
of the Rio Grande, as inducements to shed blood and do injus- 
tice. But blood having already been shed, and injustice al- 
ready done, I would claim my rights. I contend that the line 
proposed by the President of the United States, running with 
the Rio Grande from its mouth to latitude 32o nojth, and thence 
due west to the Pacific, is not too nmch indemnity for what 
Mexico owes. I would for this pay her not one cent. If you 
w^ant to pay her, pay her for Texas. But these provinces have 
never been a source of power to her, and never will be. She 
has not extended to them the protection of the federal govern- 



502 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

merit ; they are subject to Indian attack and pillage ; they have 
few people, and would never throw a disturbing force into our 
councils. 

What claim does Mexico set up to them? Has she any other 
than conquest ? Has she allowed any Indian of the country to 
retain a fee simple in the soil of their ancestors ? Why, then, 
show " magnanimity " to those who have never shown it to 
others ? I have not now, and never have had much respect for 
any other claim than that of labor upon the soil. Mexico can 
not cultivate this country ; we can, and will ; if not now, here- 
after — as certainly as fate. Will we ever have a better title 
than now ? Will we ever be in a better condition to assert our 
will ihan now ? Then why not say, as Mr. Poinsett advises, 
to Mexico: "You owe us so much money ; you refuse to pay 
us ; we will take to this line ; attack us at your peril ! " 

The present standing army is sufficient for the purpose. Dis- 
miss your volunteers, and take secure " interior posts of de- 
fence" and offence. Pioceed as you do against the Indiai:is. Go 
not to the line, but in striking distance. Mexico can never 
march large armies to the border. She has neither commissary 
nor quartermaster departments ; her soldiers are paid, and er»ch 
man finds his own shelter and food by daily purchase or rob- 
bery. They cannot make long marches in large masses ; they 
would not if they could. Such is the course of policy recom- 
mended by those who know them best. Such would I recom- 
mend. The Nueces is the western boundary of Texas ; let 
the balance be formed into new states — into//-ee states. Texas 
never conquered a foot of land beyond the Nueces except Cor- 
pus Christi. The remainder belongs to the provinces of Ta- 
maulipas, Coahuila, Chihuahua, and New Mexico. She has 
no more right to that than she has to the Federal district of the 
United States, or of the Mexican republic. Slavery ought not 
longer to be fed at the expense of the honor, the liberties, and 
the blood of this republic. " The area of freedom " is to be ex- 
tended indeed. Cant must at last have an end. The free mil- 
lions of this continent will not be the hacks of slavery for ever. 
The hand of destiny is upon us ; Mexico is not ours as yet. 
The time will however come when our republic will spread 
over the whole continent. The Texan precedent of Congres- 
sional annexation, will, to the slave states prove a two edged 
sword. Every national crime, like individual sin, must meet 



SPEECH AT RICHMOND. 503 

its penalty, and slavery will find at last its grave in the land 
of its promised security ! 

The majority of this people made this war legitimate ; a ma- 
jority are now, it is said, against it. By what theory of re- 
publicanism is the President allowed to carry it on ? Shall we 
never cease to believe, that the world was made for Caesar 1 
Shall we for ever ask what will the President do 1 For my 
part I see too much subservience to men in all parties. I will 
allow no man to dictate to me what I am to think or what I 
am to do. I regard the ground of Mr. Clay as too narrow for 
a great party to stand upon. Let no man assume the preroga- 
tives of Congress. Let the circumstances of tlie war determine 
its mode of termination. If I will not allow Mr. Clay to give 
me my political opinions, far less wiH I submit to the dictation 
of an irresponsible clique to whip me into the support of 7nen. 
When I go into the Presidential canvass I want to ivin. I 
don't want a man tied hand and foot and shorn of his strength, 
for my champion. Give me an honest man, a sensible man, 
who will let me think for myself, and carry out my mature 
judgment, as it is indicated by a Congress fresh from the peo- 
ple—if such an one can be foimd— he is my man for president. 
Old party hacks, who have life estates in particular ?«en— poli- 
tical parasites, who live upon the vitality of others, may de- 
nounce independent men as knaves and fools, but in my 
opinion they will at last go to bed supperless. I rejoice to 
think it so. That all party feeling or party organization will 
be broken down in the next caavass, I do not expect or believe, 
but that new elements of vitality and patriotism will be infused 
into the general government I heartily hope. What if those 
who sought political capital by the war, should be overthrown 
at last by one v)hom the war has made ! Surely there is re- 
tribution even in this world ! 

I have thus, fellow-citizens, glanced at some of the stirring 
topics of the times. I have spoken boldly and honestly. In 
this day's manifestation of approbation of my conduct you im- 
pose upon me new obligations to stand by the right in times to 
come. The time is at hand when, whatever of patriotism and 
manliness of thought there is in your state will be severely 
tested. I trust I will ever be found trying to do my whole 

duty. 

I thank you, ladies, Colonel Caperton, and fellow-citizens, 

once more, and bid you adieu. 



MEXICO. 

Address before the Mercantile Library Association of Baltimore, March 6, 
1848. 



Ladies and Gentlemen of the Society, and Fellow-Citizens : 

Mexico is the second power of the North American continent. 
It is washed by the Gulf of Mexico on the east, and by the 
Pacific ocean on the west : and extends from the repubhc of 
Guatemala, in about latitude 16*^, to the United States, in lati- 
tude 42"^ north. It is subdivided into twenty-four stales and 
provinces, including the federal district : and, since the dis- 
ruption of Texas, contains about one and a half millions of 
square miles. The great Rocky mountains run from north to 
south through all Mexico — spread out into several parallel or 
slightly divergent chains, which widen into table-lands six or 
eight thousand feet above the level of the sea, or with serrated 
and impassable heights border level plains, which descend by 
steps to both seas. Not only its great extent, but its altitude 
imder the same parallel of latitude, gives Mexico all the climates 
of the world. From the low lands of Vera Cruz, and Acapulco, 
of suffocating heat and tropical vegetation, you pass to Mexico, 
and Toluca, through every grade of temperature, till you are 
stopped on the heights of Orizaba, Popocatapetl^ and Toluca, 
more than seventeen thousand feet above the level of the sea — • 
regions of eternal snow and sterility. The fruits, and melons, 
and vegetables of all climes, are found here. The great articles 
of subsistence are wheat, Indian corn, the potato, the banana, 
pepper, onions, and garlic ; and barley, used exclusively for 
horses. Humboldt has estimated the banana to yield more food 
to the acre than the potato, the most fruitful of European crops. 
This, howevei-, as a food, exclusive of more costly products, is not 
to be envied by any people, For Mr. Malthus has demonstrated 
the evil of any people living upon the lowest in price in the 



ADDRESS AT BALTIMORE. 505 

scale of foods. For when the lowest fails there is no possible 
substitute : the poor not being able to go back and purchase 
wheat, or dear food, in a famine. Whereas, those who live 
habitually upon flesh, or wheat flour, or Indian corn, can sub- 
stitute oats, barley, and potatoes for a time, for their ordinary 
provisions during a scarcity of these last. The famine of Ire- 
land was foretold by this great man : for the potato crop failing, 
no cheaper substitute was possible : and the consequence in 
the long run will be death, till there are only enough to live 
upon the old kinds of produce. The maguey, or American aloe, 
is the source of the principal Mexican drink. This plant grows 
in the driest places, and amidst the most abrupt steeps and rocky 
wastes. When it is ready to flower, not at the age of a century, 
as is generally supposed in this country, but somewhere from 
seven to fifteen years of its growth, the flower bud is scooped 
out into a kind of bowl, into which the sap, which was about 
to push up the immense flower stem of thirty or forty feet, now 
daily flows to the immense total quantity of from twenty to 
fifty gallons. The plant thus exhausted dies. This juice is 
taken up by a gourd siphon of the length and thickness of a 
man's arm (suction being applied through a small hole by the 
human mouth), emptied into hog-skin sacks, and then taken to 
the cities, and put into wooden or earthen vessels. After the 
vinous fermentation takes place, it is fit for use ; being in color 
and taste something between still beer and crab cider ; and cer- 
tainly a very wholesome and agreeable beverage in warm cli- 
mates. This liquor composes the staple of all " coflee houses ;" 
is called pulque ; and the vending-shops are called pulquerias. 
Here, as in most countries, is done the loafing, quarreling, and 
killing. The signs which indicate these earthly hells are, how- 
ever, more honest than those of our country. I have seen over 
the doors signs with mad buflalo bulls, rattlesnakes, and wild 
Camanche Indians, with knives dripping with the blood of their 
victims : certainly very fit emblems of the destroyer within ! 

Mexico produces for home consumption, in addition to the 
articles I have already named, sugar, cotton, tobacco, and wine, 
and brandy, and nuischal. She exports, principally, the pre- 
cious metals, cochineal — which feeds upon the cactus — beauti- 
fid woods, hides, tallow, vanilla, indigo, jalap, and pimento. 
Fine wine is made at Parras, in Coahuila, near Saltillo, and in 
other portions of the country ; but I believe none is exported. 



506 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

The mines of Mexico, have fallen off in their proceeds since the 
revolution. During the civil wars much machinery was de- 
stroyed, and the lower mines filled with water ; and much capital 
withdrawn from these investments by the expulsion of the Spa- 
niards. The system of mining is also defective. When a mine 
has ceased to be worked for a few months, any informant may 
apply to the board of mines and have it condemned to his own 
use. Of course, such insecurity of property discourages heavy 
investments. Owing to all these causes the product of the 
mines has fallen from more than twenty millions yearly to an 
average of less than twelve millions, since Mexican indepen- 
dence. There is no reason to beli«ve, however, that Mexico is 
exhausted in this respect. Under a stable government, no 
doubt she is capable of producing as much as ever ; for her 
treasures are untold, and undiscovered ; and her whole sur- 
face indicates metallic formations. Mining countries are, how- 
ever, always poor. Nature never aggregates all her wealth. 
Franklin's system of mining was, no doubt, the best — never to 
go more than ten or twelve inches below the surface of the 
soil. Agriculture is the greatest source of national wealth. 

After all, Mexico is rather picturesque and lovely, than pos- 
sessed of great elements of wealth and civilization. When we 
add up her mountains, her volcanic rocks, her arid plains, and 
the pestilential marshes of Vera Cruz and the western coast, I 
venture to say that nine-tenths of her whole surface is unpro- 
ductive of human food. It is true, there are some extraordi- 
nary and very fertile spots, where there is water ; but they are 
thinly scattered over vast space, and are small in extent. She 
has no navigable rivers, inland seas, and bays — those arteries 
of civilization. It is true the Rio Grande, on the east, and the 
Colorado of the west, are capable of being navigated with 
steamboats ; but they are very inferior channels of commerce. 
Vera Cruz is the best harbor in the direction of Europe ; and 
even here none but vessels lying under the lee of the castle, 
are safe in a severe gale. I believe the first class of vessels 
cannot enter the harbor at all. The harbors of Acapulco and 
San Diego, and San Francisco, of the west, are splendid places 
of anchorage ; but they are far removed from the present sites 
of production. Even her grateful climate is a barrier to pro- 
gress. For altitude, whilst it refreshes, enervates ; the light 
pressure of the atmosphere relaxes the muscles and unfits men 



ADDRESS AT BALTIMORE. 507 

for active and laborious exertion. Repose broods over all na- 
ture ; the trees struggle through centuries to their dwarfed 
maturity. The Indian shrinks from the vertical sun into his 
mud hut, or the plantain shade ; the wealthy Mexican retires 
into thick walls to his daily siesta ; the beasts of the field even, 
seem to dread locomotion. With drooping ears and sullen 
mien, the ass and the mule wend on with drowsy pace — seem 
like fixed points on some far ascent — or raise columns of sub- 
limated sand, immoveable on the distant horizon. The gurg- 
ling brooks are here silent in their parched channels ; and the 
very birds— nature's glad choristers of other lands— are mute 
in the drooping shrubs. As mind and matter are mysteriously 
united, and their cognate laws little known, so is there a 
large and unexplained field of unknown truths, upon which 
man, and climate, and soil, rest. Whether man be descend- 
ed from a single stock, or many embryos, in far-distant lands, 
it matters not. For untold ages the whites of the temperate 
climes have poured themselves, by war and peaceful immigra- 
tion, into the hot wastes of southern Asia and the rich plains 
of India. Again and again have Africa, and the isles of the 
sea, of similar structure and temperature, been invmdated from 
southern Europe and Asia Minor ; yet how few of the Cauca- 
sian race now people those vast regions ! So it has been, and 
so will it be in all coming lime. 

Around inland seas and rivers, those channels of rapid trans- 
mission of physical and mental wealth, has civilization ever 
loved to hover. If the Mexican aborigines had had these 
also, in addition to their pleasant climate and facile production, 
they would no doubt long since have rivaled China, if not Asia 
Minor, and Southern Europe. But without these, they had gone 
far ahead of all other American nations. At the time of the 
Spanish conquest, in 1.519-20, the Aztecs lived in cities, and 
cultivated the soil. The ruins of cities, pyramids, idols, and 
anticpiarian relics, described by Stephens, Humboldt, and others, 
show advanced architectvue, and progress beyond the savage 
life of hunters, and the wanderings of shepherds. Montezuma 
was not a chief, ruling by the willing love and admiration of 
his people, but by the sword. He was a great king. He had 
learned the too often attendant evil of civilization, oppression, 
the subjugation of the minds and bodies of others to individual 
wants. That a superior race, however, once possessed Mexico, 



508 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

I have no idea : far less, the least proof. Semi-barbarous 
nations, have frequently excelled in jDarticular arts. All Europe 
cannot rival the shawls of Cashmere : and France, and Eng- 
land, and the United States, have in vain attempted the Rebosa 
of Mexico. Yet the Rebosa is of Indian manufacture. The 
ruins of ancient works in Mexico, then show nothing which 
the Aztecs may not have done ; whilst the " Sun Dial," and 
" Stone of Sacrifice," yet seen in the city of Montezuma, show 
art in the use of the chisel, unsurpassed by any shown by 
Stephens, or others. That Mexico has continued to progress 
since the conquest, is equally certain, as that civilization has 
advanced in the whole world from tune immemorial, as it will 
do in the main in all coming time. They who then used bows 
and arrows, now use fire-arms. They who were wrapped in 
skins, and ornamented with dyed feathers and shells, now are 
clothed in woolens, cottons, and silks, and adorned with gold, 
silver, and precious stones. Mud and cane wrought hovels are 
substituted by palaces of marble and stone. Rude liieroglyphics 
yield to letters and words, those ready exponents of thought and 
things. Laws, feebly executed, and not very distinctly or wisely 
conceived, 'tis true, but on the whole salutary in protecting life, 
property, and character, bear rule, instead of the mad will of a 
pampered despot. The bloodless idolatries of the Catholic re- 
ligion, bad as they are, are yet surely something better than the 
nightmare terrors of heathen idols, and the bloody oflerings to 
insatiate gods of stone. Mexico then may be ranked among 
the civilized nations. A very silly fellow can see that Mexico 
is not equal, in development, to the United States. A good 
man will not readily denounce a whole people ; whilst the wise 
and philosophical will look to the point whence a people 
started, and be cautious of placing down dogmatical barriers 
to future progress. 

The Mexican people number about eight millions of souls: 
five and a half of tliese are pure Indians, and from two to 
three millions whites, Africans, and mixed bloods. The Afri- 
cans are very few in number, and are rarely seen, except in 
the lowlands of the coast. No doubt I shall startle many 
Americans when I say that Mexico nearly equals the slave 
states of this Union, in civilization. I know what I say. First 
in the mechanic arts, take all that Mexico makes in her borders, 
and all that the South makes in her borders, and Mexico is 



ADDRESS AT BALTIMORE. 5Q9 

superior. She equals us in the making of hats and boots, and 
surpasses us far in the making of shoes : all the shoes of the 
women are made at home. She excels the South in saddlery 
— in the making of cotton, woolen and silk goods — in manu- 
factures of steel and iron, of gold and silver, and jewelry. 
In architecture, she is ahead of the South. The city of Mexi- 
co, in beauty, extent, sewers, water works, public walks, dura- 
bility, and taste, is ahead of any city in the South. The 
hacienda of* the Mexican, is more magnificent than the home- 
stead in Virginia, or the plantation house in Louisiana. The 
tenantry, and serfs, are better sheltered than the slaves of the 
South. 

In agriculture, the South has better tools ; but they are of 
'• Yankee " make. But in ponds, in stone fencing, hedging, and 
ditching, in putting in wheat, and gathering it into stacks and 
barns, I have never in America seen anything to equal Mexico. 
In physical well-being, then, Mexico has more advanced than 
the South. In civil hberty, how do they stand 7 Mexico has 
no jury, I grant you, but then she boasts not the honored Judge 
Lynch of the South ! Mexico has more robberies of property : 
the South more destruction of human life. There are more 
men killed in the South by the duel and the street rencontre, 
than there are by robbery and murder in Mexico. Mexico 
allows not the duel, nor divorce — those ever attendants of bar- 
barism. The South is horribly permissive of both. I have not 
the least patience with those who compare the serfdom of Mexico 
with the slavery of the South. I shall not attempt to vindicate 
the oppressions of Mexico. The apology for crime, that it is 
shared by others, is the poor vindication of thieves ; and the 
miserable consolation of damned spirits ! Whatever force there 
is in the feeble artillery of bitter words, I would for ever thunder 
into the unwilling ears of tyranny and crime, in whatever land 
they may be found, or under whatever Protean names they may 
attempt to hide themselves. Let us see then. In Mexico, if 
you take and use my labor, the accumulations of the expended 
"sweat of my face"^ — my iiroperty^ you are bound to pay me, 
in default of other property, your labor. Is there, then, any 
hardshij) in this? No. I say, in whatever land this law does 
not prevail, there justice does not prevail. Here is foreknowledge 
and consent on the part of the serf, to pay labor for pioperty 
already used tliat rightly belonged to another. In Mexico, then. 



510 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

debt and slavery are one. In a lecture which I had the honor 
to deliver a few years ago, in the city of Philadelphia, I think I 
incontestibly showed that this was the only legitimate base of 
slavery possible in the nature of things. In America, I believe 
that it is not pretended that the slave "■owes^^ the master any- 
thing. Even the ingenuity of Messrs. McDuffie and Hammond 
have not yet so made it appear : though I confess, from the past, 
there seems to be imminent probability that they will after a 
while cause logic so to bear them out. The children of the 
serf are free. The children of the slave are slaves. The serf 
of Mexico may work out his freedom : all the mines of Mexico 
are not legally equal to the liberation of a single American 
slave. In America, slaves are almost regarded, in every sense, 
as chattels ; the beasts of the field are as well protected by law 
as the slaves of this nation. I say, then, what I have before at 
other times and places uttered to unwilling ears, American 
slavery is the most despotic of known governments, the most 
uncompromising of world-wide oppression. Mexico, then, in 
the security of her person and property, is as civilized as the 
South. If it be possible to draw a distinction between pohtical 
and civil rights, the South might at first blush to arrogate supre- 
macy over Mexico : if so, it takes the ever-watchful death- 
struggle of ten millions of northern freemen to efiect even that. 
For long years the right of petition, one mode of the liberty of 
speech and of the press, without which all government is im- 
possible, was lost in the Union itself When Santa Anna made 
a forced contribution in Mexico, to sustain his newly-raised 
troops, he turned all the editors but the government organ out 
of doors, and closed their presses. 

To question the tyranny of Don Antonio Lopez de Santa 
Anna, was regarded by him as a ^'' nuisanceP But still the 
presses of the states continued to denounce him. In my state 
and in yours, my noble audience, the liberty of the press is 
inviolate. But iiow many, alas ! of the fifteen southern states 
can say the same ? The mihtary dictator of Mexico sends 
Almonte and Arista to prison : South Carolina and Louisiana 
with far less show of justice, banish the envoys of Massachu- 
setts for ever from their borders. Whilst "citizens" of so called 
free and independent states, contrary to the laws of nature, the 
rights of nations, and the express declaration of the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, lie imprisoned without crime, in the 
dungeons of the South. 



ADDRESS AT BALTIMORE. 51| 

Mexico, I imagine, prints as many books as the South, There 
are as many Mexicans of the present generation learning to 
read and write as there are Whites and Blacks in the slave 
states, according to population. It is true, I have no statistics 
to prove so grave an assertion : but the Mexicans live in cities 
and villages, and of late years, schools are everywhere estab- 
lished. In both nations there is much ignorance. In Mexico 
there is a determination on all hands to spread learning among 
the people. In the slave states, on the contrary, there is a pre- 
dominant party, the slaveholders, who have determined syste- 
matically to oppose the education of the people. I foretold 
years ago the loss of the school fund ia Kentucky. That state 
which nature has overflowed with every natural source of 
wealth and civilization, has not a single cent set aside for the 



education of her people ! 

I say, then, the cry of our people, who are vociferous for the 
conquest of Mexico, under pretence of extending the " area of 
freedom," comes in most questionable shape. I recommend 
such to one Robert Burns, who thus aspired : 

" Oh wad some power the giftie gie us, 
To see oursels as ithers see us ;" 

or to that higher source of moral precept : 

" Thou hypocrite: first cast out the beam oat of thine own eye : and then 
shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of the eye of thy brother.'' 

Mexico has struggled on through many obstacles to her pre- 
sent state. Spain brought not liberty, but a change of masters. 
The chiefs of hostile tribes were put to death. Their idols 
were broken ; and their cities and dwellings razed to the 
ground. It was the policy of the Spaniards to destroy all 
mementos of her religion, government, and past history. The 
Indians were forced into villages for police pmposes. and to use 
their impaid labor. The whole land was divided among the 
conquerors. Communications with foreigners were entirely cut 
off'; education discouraged. Every thing that Spain could 
make, or raise on the soil was forbidden in Mexico, to foster 
the monopoly of the mother country. The very vines and 
olive trees were plucked up under this grinding system of exclu- 
sion. Hand in hand with political oppression, went religious 
intolerance and fraud. Not only was freedom of conscience 



512 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

disallowed, but the reading of the Bible even forbidden. The 
mind was first made weak and pliant by vain and silly ceremo- 
nies, and then the persons of the many made subservient to the 
wants and appetites of the governing few. Spain built churches 
and public roads, and waterworks and bridges — a huge body 
of nationality — but infused into it no soul. No. Without liberty 
there is no progress. For three centuries Mexico lay prostrate 
under the leaden hand of despotism. The arm of the Father 
of nations is not shortened. Nature for ever purges herself of 
her violated laws. 

About 1810 the spirit of the people had outgrown the 
feeble grasp of the tyrant. After many hard-fought battles, 
in 1820, independence was established. In 1824, after the usurpa- 
tion, and speedy overthrow of the emperor Iturbide, a constitu- 
tional government was formed : modeled after our federal sys- 
tem. That men, unaccustomed to self-government, should at 
once secure liberty, was not to be expected. In 1836 Santa 
Anna, after many revolutions, established Centralisiu ; and in 
1838 proclaimed the basis of Tucubaya, which, under the forms 
of law, clothed him with unlimited power. " But freedom's 
battle, once begun," is ever onward. Like Iturbide, he was 
readily overthrown ; and after many defeats, Mexico still strug- 
gles on to ultimate hberty. Whether she shall fall into the 
American Union, or maintain her separate nationality, Mexico 
has sworn eternal enmity to tyrants. That a few of the priests, 
and some remnants of the old Spanish famihes, desire a mon- 
archy, is true, but they are a most insignificant part of the 
nation. The most of the intelligence and patriotism of Mexico 
belongs to the democratic party, who war against centralism 
and solitary rule : who are, in other words, for a constitutional 
republic. They are alike the foes of despotism, in church 
and state. The army composed of broken down politicians, 
bankrupts in fortune, and successful robbers, a few gallant 
men, of course, excepted, are for any man who will plunder 
priest or layman for their benefit. Among these stands Santa 
Anna, " proudly pre-eminent." The most skilful of rogues— ^ 
the most successfid of robbers — the falsest of villains — yet, in 
talents, far ahead of his nation — he has been the pride, the 
curse, and the final ruin of his country. Overthrown by 
Paredes — an exile during the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca 
— a solitary and miserable fugitive from the vengeance of his 



ADDRESS AT BALTIMORE. 5X3 

countrymen — his statues overthrown — his leg lately buried 
with the honors of war, amid the tears and admiration of a 
whole people, now exhumed, and cast, with insult and exe- 
cration, into the streets, to be devoured by the dogs and vul- 
tures — ^in Cathohc countries, the most impious desecration of 
the dead — he returns alone once more, and places himself in 
the presidential chair, and at the head of the patriot army of 
Mexico. In opposition to the democratic party, then in the 
ascendant in most of the states^n spite of the priests, whom 
he had plundered, and canaille, whom he had abused and in- 
sulted — in a few months he raises sixty thousand troops, and 
fights the three great battles of Buena Vista, Cerro Gordo, 
and Mexico. After the battle of Cerro Gordo, the last hope 
of successful resistance to the American invader seemed lost in 
the bosoms of the most hopeful patriots. A thousand armed 
men could have captured the capital of the republic. The 
city authorities having, no doubt, the fate of Vera Cruz within 
memory, sent word to Santa Anna not to enter the walls of 
Mexico. He treated their command with supreme contempt. 
A daily pronunciamento, and revolution, was expected in the 
city : in which, it was supposed. Congress, then in session, 
would take a prominent part. Yet, with about three thousand 
men, ragged, hungry, and spirit broken, and a few pieces of 
artillery, lie marched into a city of three hundred thousand 
souls. 

Affecting to resign his command, the conspirators were lulled 
to inactivity, when, in a few days, by the congress of the 
nation, he was clothed with absolute poiver — excepting only 
the authority to make peace with the Northern invaders. In 
a few months more he is at the head of an army of thirty 
thousand troops — levies forced contributions upon the city, and 
pays his contractors, and his followers. The hatred of the 
Americans was only a little less than the enmity to this incar- 
nation of centralism and tyranny. The states lent him feeble 
lid : his camp \vas full of traitors : the battle came on : the 
lay went against him. He plundered the treasury — opened 
the prisons to the sacking of the capital — fled in the night— 
and once more from the wilds of Puebla, addressed, through 
the press which he had before silenced, in patriotic and 
hopeful strains, his oft deluded countrymen. He resigns his 
presidency and leadership in the army, afiects humility and 
33 



514 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

self-sacrifice — but in a few weeks more I left him behind me in 
Mexico, marching with a few needy followers against Anaya, 
and Pena y Pena, legal and adopted successors, to re-establish 
himself in the dictatorial power ! Such is Santa Anna. It is 
not wonderful, then, that he should have been an insuperable 
obstacle to the liberties of Mexico. 

In 1824, in her Constitution, Mexico inserted a clause of pros- 
pective emancipation. In 1829 liberty was proclainaed by Pre- 
sident Bocanegra throughout the republic. In 1830, and in 
1836, these noble laws were attempted to be fully enforced. 
Then, and not till then, to our shame be it spoken, began the 
war with our race. Mexico complains that we set upon her in 
her minority^ and that we have not shown the magnanimity of 
equal battle. Her resistance to us is called foolishness, and her 
patriotism is, to us, Spanish obstinacy. A people who again 
and again risked all that was sacred for great principles and the 
integrity of their empire, however feeble in execution, is to the 
foolish only, an object of contempt. With an empty treasury, 
with a desolated country, with her villages destroyed, her cities 
in ruins, her capital threatened by the invader, with a hundred 
thousand troops— thinned with ball, disease, and famine — at 
last killed and dispersed, she declares once more against a hu- 
miliating and dishonorable peace. New Mexico, said she, has 
ever shown herself loyal to the Mexican nation ; often neglect- 
ed, and never fully defended by the central power, she had yet 
shown herself ready to make any sacrifice in the defence of the 
common liberties ; sooner than yield up their countrymen^who 
sought perpetual alliance with the Mexican people, to the inva- 
der — they would all be involved in one common ruin. I quote 
from memory, but such is the spirit of this ever-glorious response 
of the Mexican nation to Mr. Trist's proposed treaty of peace. 
A nation capable of such magnanimity of soul can never be 
permanently enslaved. 

I have thus attempted an outline of the progress of Mexico 
in physical, social, and political development — all which maybe 
summed up in the one word, civilization. I shall now take a 
pictorial view of some things difficult to group ; and though un- 
important in themselves, yet, perhaps not uninteresting to a por- 
tion of my audience. 

So soon as you approach the Rio Grande you feel that you 
are in a strange land. The live oaks, the cotton woods, and 



ADDRESS AT' BALTIMORE. 5^5 

long moss, which border tlie streams of Texas, decline into 
that peculiar and not very easily described mixture of stunted 
thorns, shrubs, and various cacti, which constitute the Mexican 
chaporal. The buffaloes, the wild horses and cattle, the ante- 
lopes and deer, which enliven the wild wastes of the Nueces 
and Rio Grande, disappear. You are once more in the ha.unts 
of men — the confines of civilization. But it is a civilization of 
a new type. You see people of a copper color, and an unknown 
language. The mass of the men and women are bare-legged, 
and wear sandals. The men are clad in white trowsers ; some- 
times open at the sides, or closed with showy buttons, bound 
round the waist with a red or blue sash, or scarf; in their 
shirt sleeves of white cotton, or robed in a serape, or a tight fit- 
ling roundabout of white. They wear broad brimmed hats, 
with conical crowns, and hat-bands of wrought silver wire, or 
fur of animals. The women are seen in many-colored petti- 
coats, of white, blue, red, and yellow, with similar scarfs round 
the waist ; white chemise ; bare arms and bust, with the rebo- 
sa covering the head, shoulders, bosom, and flowing gracefully 
to the ground. The hair of the men is cut short ; but that of 
the women is divided into two plaits, ornamented with red rib- 
band, and falling full length down the neck and back. The 
Mexicans arc less in stature than we ; have small feet, and 
hands, round limbs, and are graceful in movements of person, 
and courteous in manners. The natives of wealth, as well as 
the Spaniards, are cosmopolitan in their dress, except that no 
class wears bonnets. The Mexican women of Spanish ances- 
try are generally brunettes, with black hair and bright, black 
eyes ; but some of them are the fairest blondes, with blue eyes 
and auburn hair. Some of the native Indians of the highlands, 
as in the mountains of Toluca, are nearly white, of a warm, 
red complexion, like the people near Lima, in South America ; 
these arc also beautiful in feature, and have none of the cha- 
racteristic features of the Indian races. Chocolate, with cold 
bread, or toast, is the universal breakfast of Mexico ; then 
comes dinner, of meats, vegetables, and fruits; then chocolate 
once more at night, before going to bed. Some add a more sub- 
stantial breakfast, but rarely ever supper. From twelve, to four 
or five in the afternoon, the better classes are never seen. Then 
every one that can raise a coach goes to the public drive, called 
the Pasao. There they occasionally draw up in a circle, 



516 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

arovmd some jets-d'cau, or statues of stone, salute each other 
by a gentle wave of the fingers of the hand, pass a few common 
place compliments, and drive off again, till dusk hurries them 
into the city. The men, on horseback, or in carriages, go 
through the same routine of salutation and recreation. When 
the^hades of evening begin to lengthen, in all the principal 
cities of Mexico, may be seen in the balconies, leaning on the 
ballusters, thousands of as lovely women as the world can boast, 
with long flowing hair, bare arms, and irresistible eyes. The 
humbler classes go on foot to the Alamedas, or public walks. 
These are everywhere seen in Mexican cities ; full of trees and 
flowers, and stone seats, and gravel walks, statues, and jets- 
d'eau of cool waters. In such places is most of the courting 
done ; and I am told that many a match has been made, and 
agreed upon, and even consummated by the church ceremony, 
before the parties have ever exchanged a word. But these I 
imagine are extreme cases. Still, dinner and evening parties, 
and free conversation between young people, are almost un- 
known in Mexico. At the theatres, and in their carriages, or 
on feast days— at times in the balconies, are w^omen seen in full 
dress, when all the mines of Mexico are worn. Bull and cock 
fights, monte banks, theatres, and religious processions, are the 
public and principal amusements of Mexico. The Catholic re- 
ligion, like the Heathenism of Greece and Rome, seems every 
where to foster rather a refined sensualism than the pleasures 
of the intellect and the family affections — which are the true 
conservators of morals. Passing into the country you are met 
at every turn by caravans of mules, bearing on their large and 
gay pack-saddles of colored cloth, merchandise, the products of 
the mines, and the fruits of the soil. The Mexicans might just- 
ly be characterized as the nation of mule-drivers. Like the 
Arabs, they lead an adventurous and romantic life. They eat 
and sleep generally in the open air, turn out their mules to 
graze, and by the light of wood fires play monte, or the Mexi- 
can guitar. They go with arms ; for which they have frequent 
use in the long and dangerous defiles of unpeopled mountains, 
or the dark and tangled thickets, where robbers find easy am- 
buscade for attack, and concealment from the arm of the law. 
The villages are built mostly of sun-dried bricks, composed of 
clay and straw. They have wooden carts and wagons on the 
farms ; and wooden ploughs are seen every where, drawn by 



ADDRESS AT BALTIMORE. 5|7 

oxen in the fields. The goats and sheep feed together in the 
same flock, and the watch-fires of the shepherds are seen night- 
ly in tlie mountains. 

The roofs of the houses are flat, and of oriental or Moorish 
models. The palmetto, the orange, the citron, and the banana, 
remind you of Eastern climes — the land of the Arabian Nights, 
whilst the women are seen in long lines along the running- 
streams washing their garments, or bearing great earthern cans 
to the wells for water ; just as Rachel was seen by Jacob of 
old, in Judea. There are no chimneys in Mexican houses ; and 
from the thickness of the walls they are suflaciently warm in 
winter, and cool in summer. The coal used for cooking is 
brought on the backs of mules or asses from the mountains. 
Go into the houses of the poor, and you find them sitting on 
skins of animals dressed with the hair all retained. Meat is 
served up in small earthern platters, with a great profusion of 
red pepper ; a separate dish is given each guest. The hand is 
knife and fork ; and the tortilla, bread and spoon. This is 
homely fare ; but when the appetite is good, and the hostess a 
beautiful woman, it is by no means unpleasant. A few pictures 
of saints, crosses, and beads, occasional bedsteads with serape 
bed coverlids, and an earthern water vessel for water, and 
another for pulque, are the usual furniture. The kitchen has 
nothing peculiar but the nietate. This is a square stone of a 
few feet, with another stone three sided like a prism, and of the 
size of an ordinary bread-roller : between these stones the Indian 
corn, first softened in boiling water, is rubbed into a malleable 
paste ; this is patted between the hands into the size of buck- 
wheat cakes, and then cooked half done on a baking plane of 
earthenware or iron. This bread is the far-famed tortilla ; the 
food of the great mass of the Mexican people : the making of 
these is the chief employment of a woman's every-day life. 
The most remarkable feature of Mexican scenery is the want 
of trees. Except along the mountain tops and running streams 
there are no trees in Mexico. Over the wide waste of mountain 
and plain are interminably spread the cactus, the palmetto, the 
aloe, tall and stinted grass, and rocky surfaces. The birds are 
different in size and plumage from ours. The quail is crested 
like the peacock. The blackbird is larger, and the lark less, 
and both have a different note from ours. The raven is the 
same, but far more gentle. The vulture, and the Mexican eagle 



518 THE WRITINGS OF OASSIUS M. CLAY. 

differ from ours ; and are everywhere seen ; even in cities, on 
the tops of houses and chvuches. I saw no crows in Mexico. 
In the low lands of Acapulco and Vera Cruz, the parrot and 
paroquets keep up an eternal clatter. On the Rio Grande, the 
blackbird pours forth a continual strain of not unpleasant music. 
Several species of nightingales are seen and heard in all parts 
of Mexico. In the interior of Mexico, however, as I have before 
remarked, there sits eternal silence and repose upon all nature. 
The melancholy notes of a small ring-dove but add to the feel- 
ing of desolation. After a few days' travel from Camargo, you 
see the mountains of Monterey : some of them are ever in sight. 
After being six months on the plains of Arkansas and Texas, 
I shall never forget my sensations upon first seeing the blue 
tops of these bold, serrated, and lofty piles. The vast height of 
the mountains of Mexico produces a continual optical illusion : 
they always seem nearer than they are. Thus you travel for 
days, it seems, under the shadow of some lofty peak, that inter- 
minably recedes as you approach. Mirage, that interesting 
novelty of great sandy plains, is common in Mexico. No country 
in the world is more picturesque than Mexico. You wind along 
rocky beds of mountain streams, steep defiles, and deep-washed 
barancas, till, suddenly turning some corner of a mountain, the 
most lovely valley of cultivated fields, lakes, streams, herds, 
villas, and minaretted cities, breaks at full view upon the capti- 
vated eye. The largest wheat and corn fields in the world, I 
imagine, are here. The mountain streams are dammed up 
with huge masonry ; and, during the dry season, poured out to 
irrigate the soil. Two or more crops in one year, are common 
all over Mexico. The fields are fenced with stone, or with 
ditches and embankments, covered with cactus^ or the aloe, or 
thorn. In these walls of stone are numerous grey squirrels. 
The flowers and ornamental shrubs of Mexico, are justly cele- 
brated for their variety, beauty, and delicate texture. In the 
quadrangular colonnades of wealthy Mexican houses, these 
flowers for ever bloom in vases of Tuscan mould and beauty. 
Even the Indian in the market place is sheltered from the sun's 
rays, by a parasol made of the flower of the maguey and wreaths 
of rustic flowers. Upon these the humming-bird, of great variety 
of species, and beautiful plumage, feed. Except on the moun- 
tain heights, no dews fall. The twilights are lovely, and the 
nights brilliant ; you may read a newspaper by the light of the 



ADDRESS AT BALTIMORE. 519 

moon ; and sleep with impunity in the open air. Nowhere else 
have I seen so many stars in the heavens, and the planets so 
moonlike. 

Many of the customs of Spain followed her people into the 
new world. The serenade is not uncommon. Of course I 
have been to fandangos. The earth is cleared off smoothly in 
a circular form, as large as a city ball room : in the centre is 
placed a vessel of oil, with a large wick, which with the moon 
gives sufficient light. Wooden seats are placed around the 
circle. All the lassies of the villa, with their near relatives, 
are gathered together. Introductions are not used : but if the 
lady refuses to dance, no insult is meant or received ; there 
must be some safe-guard against uninteresting ugliness, or im- 
pertinence. Waltzes, fandangos, country dances, and a dance 
resembling a quadrille, with a waltz, are all .to be seen ; of 
these, the waltz is the favorite. 

" Those waltz now, who never waltzed before ; 
And those who always waltzed, now waltz the more." 

Everybody, old and young, falls into the magic circle — and 
late does revelry " vex the dull ear of night." If your lady has 
deigned to dance with you, you are expected to treat her to re- 
freshments of coffee, chocolate, nuts, and fruits, which are al- 
ways vended at hand. Of the Mexican women, of all others, 
full of simplicity, confidence, and warmth of soul, it may be 
said : 

" If tliey love — they love : you may depend ou it; 
But if they don't — they don't : and there's an end on it." 

After all that has been said of the Mexicans, I believe there 
are no women less mercenary in their loves. But when love is 
gone, all is gone ; they know no law but that of the affections. 
They remain long neglected, with the most philosophical, or 
rather the most unphilosophical devotion to their lords. On 
the battle-field, even, they are shot down attending to the 
wounded and the dying. And on the march they follow the 
impressed soldier for hundreds of miles, suffering all sorts of 
fatigue, exposure, and privation. When we were prisoners, 
women followed on foot eight hundred miles, keeping up with 
the cavalry, suflering for food and water, and deeming it all a 



520 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

pleasant duty, in devotion to their lovers and husbands. Sure- 
ly, of all worlds, these are the angels. The kindness of the 
Mexican women to distressed foreigners, so much talked of, is, 
I imagine, the result of the sympathy of the sexes, and is not 
confined to any nation. Foreigners are always favorites with 
women ; and not long since some very poor specimens of the 
genus homo, in the persons of Mexican prisoners of war, were 
great lions, in the eyes of southern women of America. The 
love of novelty, however, is not confined to either sex, but is a 
trait of our common nature. 

The farm-houses of the poor are called ranchos, or ranches ; 
and the abodes of the wealthy, haciendas. Mexico is owned 
by a few large landed proprietors ; of whom the priests are not 
the least portion. Whole square leagues, and entire villages 
are owned by a single proprietor. Every hacienda has its 
church and its priest, who is chain-forger for the whole village. 
If a young couple are to be married, he must have, at all 
events, a certain sum of money ; no matter how far out of the 
means of the parties ; the hacienda man advances the amount, 
and the young lovers are serfs for life. Is a mother, or sister, 
or lover dead ? before the burial, the same tragedy is again en- 
acted by these Cerberiau watch-dogs of power in all lands. 
These serfs, and oppressed tenantry, form the great mass of the 
Mexican nation. From these are taken the soldiers for the 
army, and the pohce — for their police officers are soldiers. 

Voluntary enlistments are exceedingly few. The recruiting 
officer takes not, as with us, the banner and music to lure the 
soldier to slavery : but the musket and lance are ready substi- 
tutes. They are forced from family and home into large 
monasteries, quartres, and prisons; where they are drilled, 
clothed, armed, and then sent on to the regular army. The 
sergeants are all armed with long '• hickories," to punish the 
careless and the unruly. Here, then, is the secret of the success 
of American arms. The defenders of Mexico are slaves. I 
conversed freely with the soldiers and the peasantry, from the 
Rio Grande to Toluca, and they everywhere avowed their deter- 
mination, not to fight for the rights which they never shared : 
and declared, that they would desert whenever they had an 
opportunity. What was it to them whether their masters were 
Americans, or Mexicans ? Of about one thousand men sent 
from Toluca to Mexico, to Santa Anna's assistance, not one 



DBATE ON SLAVERY. 52] 

hundred stood the battle. This is the reason why Rome fell an 
easy conquest to her barbarian invaders. The slaves of her 
great villas would not defend her ; the masters were too few — 
they could not. Had the cultivators of Italian soil been free- 
men, Caesar would never have crossed the Rubicon ; nor the 
barbarians the Alps or the Danube. Rome might have yet 
been the mistress of cities, and the Romans the conquerors of 
the world. If Mexico had been just, she would not now have 
been at the feet of the Americans. Were her eight millions of 
people freemen and landholders, scarcely one of all our army 
would escape to tell the tale of our defeat. The church has 
degraded the minds of the people, and plundered their persons. 
The army begins to plunder the church : and independent rob- 
bers to make war on people, church, and government, whilst 
the Americans are plundering all. They who sow the wind, 
shall reap the whirlwind ! They who live by the sword, shall 
perish by the sword ! I shall not here make speculations upon 
the future destiny of Mexico, in the spirit of a partizan politi- 
cian. But these speculations are subjects for the philosopher as 
well as the statesman. No doubt the climate and soil of Mexico 
compel her to a higher civilization. The mountains, by some 
unanalyzed law of nature, do not breed slaves for ever. If 
Mexico maintains her nationality now, she will hereafter not 
be so easy a prey to American rapacity. Bitter experience will 
bring her wisdom ; and adversity will teach her to be just. 
There is a party in Mexico for freedom of the press, and reli- 
gious toleration. With these come power which the bayonet 
cannot give, nor take away. Her people live in villages and 
cities, eminently well situated for general education. We will 
teach them a more liberal system of finance and civil adminis- 
tration. There are some noble spirits in Mexico, who conceive 
her true destiny : let them struggle on as they have begun. 
Freedom of internal commerce, equal taxation, trial by jur}', 
general education, freedom of the press, and of religion, are all 
that are wanting to make Mexico great. These are much — 
very much, I know ; but I trust they are not unattainable even 
by Mexico, At all events, the time for the absorption of Mexico 
by the American Union has not yet come. Slaveiy will find no 
ally in Mexico. The shrewd defenders of the " peculiar insti- 
tution ■' see this. The North is yet in her nonage : she has not 
yet begun to feel her power. Besides, she is contemptibly time- 



522 THE WRITINGS OF CASSTUS M. CLAY. 

serving: adversity will cure her of that at last. When we 
become free indeed^ then will our example be more powerful 
than our arms. Mexico will then' become a willing bride, and 
the Union be consummated. Canada, and Russia in America, 
will precede, or follow. Thus will civiHzation, which the wisest 
and coldest philosophers and statesmen have determined to have 
been progressing from the remotest time, move steadily on. 
May our loved and favored land lead on ever, as of yore, the 
vanguard of the only truly glorious army, who shall at last 
establish " the liberties of men " on earth ! 



ADDRESS 

At the Musical Fund Hall, Philadelphia, Januaiy 14, 1846, before the Board 
of Home Missions of the M. E. Church and the People ; for the benefit of 
the Poor. 



Labor, the basis of the rights of property, cannot be the subject of property. 



Reverend Sirs, Ladies, and Gentlemen of Philadelphia . 

The motives which have impelled me to appear before you, 
are tliese : In the first place, I am not insensible to the claims 
of humanity, and I am happy in being able to alleviate in some 
measure, the physical sufferings of the vmfortunate poor. I 
would also bear testimony, by my acceptance of this invitation, 
to the gratitude wliich I owe in common with the American 
people, to the Methodist Episcopal Church, for the advance which 
it has made and is making in vindicating religious and political 
liberty. But above all, am I here to proclaim, before an audi- 
ence little used to such subjects, the eternal rights of man, and 
the justice and necessity of universal liberty. 

I am no " fanatic." I war not upon society, upon government, 
upon the churches, upon the family relations, upon the rights of 
property, upon the liberty of conscience, or the freedom of speech. 
I am, on the contrary, the friend of all these ; and because I am 
so, I would place them on the ever-enduring basis of nature's 
laws. 

In the effort to vindicate the proposition that " labor, the basis 
of the rights of property, cannot be the subject of property," I 
shall resort to no new methods of reason or of authority ; but 
planting myself upon History, the Bible, the laws of Nations, 
the dicta of learned men, and right, reason, and conscience, I 
shall stand, or fall. 

That labor is a natural law, has never been questioned. As- 
suming the broad ground, that man's highest happiness consists 
in a wise understanding of, and a strict conformity to nature's 
laws, labor cannot be a curse. On the contrary, necessary as 
it is to our very existence, to mental, moral, and physical devel- 



524 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

opment, I am constrained to regard it as eminently honorable 
and an absolute blessing. And with great deference, I under- 
take to state it as the Bible doctrine. The Mosaic history is 
eminently figurative, elliptical, and general. From the necessity 
of the case, its right meaning must be drawn from liberal in- 
terpretation, assisted by reason and a large understanding of 
Nature. The first chapter of Genesis is a general account of 
the creation. The second gives the reason of man's creation ; 
verse fifth ; — " And there was not a man to till the ground.^'' 
And again, verse fifteenth : — " And the Lord took the man and 
put him into the garden of Eden, to dress it and to keep itP 
Now here was a law of Nature, or of man's being, imposed upon 
him before there was any alleged transgression on his part. It 
is sufficient for us to note this fact : whether Deity made man 
the highest hnk of animated nature, to adorn and beautify 
physical nature for his own gratification, or for man's gratifi- 
cation, pursuing what seems to be a general design, that the 
greatest possible number of animal existences should fill the 
earth, is not important to the main issue. It is true, that in the 
third chapter and seventeenth verse, we have, " Cursed is the 
ground for thy sake, in sorrow shalt thou eat of it, all the days 
of thy life," and verse eighteenth, "Thorns and thistles shall it 
bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat of the herb of the field ;" 
and nineteenth, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, 
till thou return to the ground, for out of it wast thou taken, for 
dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." But then an- 
other law had come into play. Man had sought knowledge, 
and knew good and evil ; his wants had increased ; and of 
course his labors must be commensurate with his new necessi- 
ties. In the first existence, nudity was not objectionable ; but 
as his knowledge increased and consequent refinement, " they 
sewed fig-leaves together and made themselves aprons ; and still 
advancing, they " made coats of skins and clothed them." 

I say then, that labor was thus far only a curse, that it be- 
came with man's greater knowledge, and consequent wants, a 
more urgent necessity, which could not be resisted with impu- 
nity. So that at last it falls in with the first stated general pro- 
position, that as one of nature's laws, it contributes to man's 
highest happiness, and is a benevolent and sacred attribute of 
his being. 



ADDRESS AT PHILADELPHIA. 525 

But whether labor be a blesising or a curse, we assert that it 
is the basis of pioperty, personal and real. 

That hibor is the source of the right to personal property, has 
been admitted by all writers on property, without a dissenting 
voice. The wild fruits which a man gathers, the fish which he 
catches, the game which he kills, the skins with which he clothes 
himself, the bows and arrows which he fashions from the woods, 
are all allowed rightfully to belong to him, who upon them ex- 
pended his labor — " the sweat of his face." 

Such is reason and conscience, and such the law of the whole 
world. That labor is the basis of right to real estate — to land, 
is not so universally admitted, and demands a more thorough 
demonstration and proof. 

The common right of all mankind to the land, is based upon 
reason, natural law, and the Divine grant. The first chapter 
of Genesis, twenty-eighth verse, says, "Replenish the earth, and 
subdue itP It is not disputed, then, that there was a common 
righi of man to the use of tlie earth : the difiiculty is to find au- 
thority for a separate use or property in land. 

Upon this subject there have been four leading theories : 

1. Tacit consent. 

2. The leave of God. . ^ 

3. The law of the land. - " - 

4. Labor. 

The first, '■ Tacit consent," is false in fact, and in principle. 
Land was appropriated by men and nations, without the con- 
sent of others. Nor could assent be presumed, because there 
was no notice given, nor did any portion of mankind knoio what 
the other was doing. 

The second, " Leave of God," or as others have it, " The ne- 
cessity of the case." is too indefinite, if true ; and cannot be a 
standard of action. Besides the rule destroys itself For if I 
claim land upon the ground of necessity, or the leave of God, 
the first comer might justly put in the same plea, and so subdi- 
\ade it indefinitely ; and each claiming necessity with no other 
arbiter, force would determine the last square foot necessary to 
sustain hfe. 

It seems to me more true, as well as more philosophical, to 
say that inasmuch as land could not be productive or useful 
without division or property in it, that necessity^ or the leave 



526 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

or will of God is the reason for separate use ; not the right 
which determines the particular owner. 

The third theory, " The law of the land," as Paley contends, 
is false. For whether law be " a rule of action prescribed by a 
superior to an inferior," or whether it be, as we regard it in Re- 
publics, " the constitutional will of the people," it may still be 
wrong ; and frequently is wrong ; and that which is wrong 
cannot constitute the basis of right — of rights of property, or 
of any other rights. Paley felt the absurdity of the rule, and 
very justly remarks, " The principles we have laid down upon 
this subject, apparently tend to a conclusion of which a bad use 
is apt to be made." 

He then illustrates his meaning by the limitation and mino- 
rity laws, and asserts that a man ought to pay an honest debt, 
m spite of those laws, which were intended to protect him 
ao-ams^ frauds, not in frauds; and concludes, "that so long, 
therefore, as we keep within the design and intention of a law, 
that law will justify us as well in foro conscientitB, as in foro 
humaiio, whatever be the equity or expediency of the law itself." 

I pronounce such a standard of human action false and in- 
famous ! It is enough to say that no man on earth ever did 
conscientiously act upon such a rule of conduct. On the con- 
trary, courts of equity exist in all civilized nations, expressly, 
by a wise appeal to reason and conscience, to relieve men from 
the injustice and wrong of " the law of the land." I prefer the 
language of Dymond, " The proposition, therefore, as a general 
rule, is sound. He possesses a right to property to whom the 
law of the land assigns it. This, however, is only a general 
rule." And he goes on to say, that the evils which result from 
the laws of property must be remedied by '■'■virtue in individu- 
als." T would say, then, that the law of the land is good in 
^'■foro humano,''^ but not good in '^foro conscientia," as a rule 
of action I deem it generally good. A citizen should be very 
cautious how he undertakes to set up conscience and reason 
against the law of the land ; yet when the law of the land runs 
counter to conscience and reason, he should not violate the law, 
but seek its change after the manner which the organic law of 
his nation prescribes. There are a few extreme cases in which 
the law may be justly violated ; the violators preferring its pe- 
nalties, to the inflictions of an injured conscience ; and in every 
such case the transs^ressor should weigh well whether it is bet- 



ADDRESS AT PHILADELPHIA. 527 

ter thai anarchi/ should prevail, by the overthrow of all govern- 
ment, or the assertion and vindication of his principle remain 
in abeyance J For that seems to be the uULmate test of the pro- 
priety of resistance in any case to " the law of the land." 

It seems to me, then, that Paley has utterly failed to sustain 
his position; for it depends upon the assumption, that the law 
is ever right, which is proven false, by the fact that the law of 
the land changes ; maintaining at different times under similar 
circumstances, opposite principles. But right is ever unchang- 
ably the same. 

Then is there a higher standard of action ; reason, the law 
of nature, and the will of God, which must sustain us in the 
'•'■forum of conscienceP 

The fourth theory, " Labor," Mr. Locke's ground we deem 
true. As it is admitted on all hands that there is a necessity 
for division of land among nations and individuals, it seems 
that labor is the true basis of ownership. And as the wild ap- 
ples, wild animals, and forest wood became the subject of indi- 
vidual [)roperty, and the common right which all mankind had 
in them thereby extinguished, so the land when occupied and 
improved by the sinews of a man, and watered with " the sweat 
of his face," became his. 

The usages of nations have been in the main, in accordance 
with this theory. 

1. Conquest. Bad. 

2. Grant of the Pope. " Ac de apostolica potestatis pleni- 
tude." Bad. 

3. Discovery. A certain outlay of labor. Good. 

4. Exploration. For the same reason. Better. 

5. Beneficial possession. Best. 

6. Purchase, gift, inheritance, will — all good, being mere 
modes ; where the original title was good. 

This tabular view shows the usages of nations. The two 
first grounds of property in land being false in fact, have been 
rejected by modern civilization. The rest being in accordance 
with our rule, are retained by the common consent of mankind. 

I cannot refrain from alhiding just here to our right to Ore- 
gon. It is ours by the absorption of the Spanish and French 
priority of discovery — ours by the exploration of Gray, Lewis, 
and Clark — ours by the beneficial occnpaficy of Astor, and the 
legitimate expansion of our border people — ours by the will of 



528 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

God, the laws of nature, and our own good swords, if the worst 
comes to the worst ! At the same time, having acknowledged a 
joint right of occupancy on the part of Great Britain by treaty, 
we owe her something for her improvements — her partial expen- 
diture of labor. As a Christian nation we would stand con- 
demned before God and man, if we refused now to treat, or 
submit to arbitration. 

Not only the practice of nations, but learned authorities of 
all times sustain me in my position. The Bible : Jacob claim- 
ed a light to a well because his father (Isaac), had dug it ; and 
this claim was deemed good by the Philistines. Blackstone : 
" Bodily labor bestowed upon any subject, which before lay in 
common to all men, is universally allowed to give the fairest 
and most reasonable title to our exclusive property therein." 
Vattel says the cultivation of the earth, " Is an obligation im- 
posed by nature on mankind." " The earth belongs to all men 
in general." That nations not cultivating the earth, ancient 
Germans, and modern Tartars, would be justly limited to soil 
sufficient for cultivation, in spite of the ordinary law of nations, 
possession. That Peru and Mexico being tilled, were robbed 
by the Spaniards ! but the American savages, not working the 
ground, were rightly ousted. J. B. Say, takes it for granted that 
labor is a good title to land. 

If then by reason, by the law of nations, the practice of 
States, and by all learned authority, labor is the basis of pro- 
perty — if my lot is mine because of the exertions of my sinews 
— " the sweat of my face " — my labor, a fortiori, by the strong- 
est proof known in logic, the clearest demonstrations known to 
intellect, you cannot without injustice take my person— my si- 
news — my labor. 

Labor, then, and its proceeds, are his, whose hands perform 
it. It is the most sacred of all property and cannot be alienat- 
ed by slaves or individuals, by any other rules than those which 
govern the alienation of other kinds of property. Slavery then 
cannot exist except for crime, or by the voluntary consent of the 
enslaved. 

The following are the grounds of slavery at any time urged 
by mankind. 

1. Conquest. 

2. Difference of religion. 

3. The right of the parent to sell his child. 



ADDRESS AT PHILADELPHIA. 529 

4. Inferiority of the different species of the genus homo. 

5. Inheritance, gift, will, purchase, Secondary Bases. 

6. Debt. 

7. Crime. 

8. Voluntary consent. 

The first five bases of slavery, in this tabular view are false^ 
being in opposition to our former demonstration ; the last three 
bases are good for the opposite reason. 

1. Conquest, for long ages, was the prolific source of slavery. 
It proceeded upon the principle, that '■^ might gives right f it 
admitted no other standard of action among men, no other God 
in the world but force. The advocates of slavery, by making 
conquest, or subjecting captives to servitude, attempted to defend 
the practice on the ground of philanthropy, that it was more 
lenient than putting to death ; and it was necessary to enslave 
them in order to save life. Montesquieu, with a most summary 
and sarcastic ramark, topples over the whole structure : " It is 
proven unnecessary., because in fact they were not killed.'''' 

It is enough to say of this ground of slavery that it has long 
since ceased, by the law of nations ; captives being exchanged 
in war, or liberated when peace ensues. 

2. Difference of religion, though practised among the Jews 
and other ancient nations, and assumed in modern times as a 
reason of enslavement by the Pope of Rome, and even by Louis 
XIV., of France, is so manifestly unjust and absurd, that now 
none are so poor as to do it reverence ! The Catholic Church 
has abandoned the pretension ; and no monarch or government 
in the w^orld, savage or civilized, would ever think o[ urging 
such a plea for the enslavement of their fellow-men. 

3. The right of the father to sell his child, prevailed longer 
and more universally than either of the other customs ; and 
exists in practice, to some extent, at the present time. Its fal- 
lacy is not so apparent, because the true and false are mingled, 
and their separation is a task of some skill and difficulty. The 
right of the parent to the use of the labor of the child for cer- 
tain periods, termed minority, differing among different nations, 
is not disputed. And the question may be asked, if I have the 
right to the labor of my child for twenty-one years, why not for 
life? And if / have the right, why not the privilege of selling 
it to another 7 The difficulty of this whole matter vanishes, by 
reference to the rule first laid down by me. Labor is the basis 

34 



530 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

of jyrojierty. During the infancy and childhood of the off- 
spring, the parent by the laws of nature and civil society, is re- 
quired to expend his labor for the benefit of the child ; and so 
the child, as soon as able, is by the same laws bound to 
return an equal amount of labor. And upon this basis the pa- 
rent has a right to the labor of the child for a limited term of 
years, and during that time may use, hire, or sell the child 
justly. But as in no case, an expenditure in infancy, can equal 
life-long slavery ; the sale for life is unjust and void. Men have 
acted upon this rule in the apprentice system ; and service up 
to twenty-one years of the age of the apprentice, is generally 
deemed an equivalent for a common education, a good trade, 
and sustenance and clothing during the helplessness of infancy. 

It is enough to say of this basis of slavery, then, that it is 
unjust ; and has in practice been abandoned in all civilized na- 
tions. 

4. The inferiority of the different species of man, whether real 
or assumed, has been made the ground of enslavement. 

Were I here merely to defend a theory, I might very ably 
maintain the proposition that there is no difference in the races 
of men, that they are of equal capacity of elevation and civili- 
zation, all children of the same father, Adam. But if I know 
myself, I seek earnestly after the truth, and wherever she leads 
me 1 follow. 

I am a friend of the Bible, an adherent of the Christian phi- 
losophy. If they are based upon the eternal laws of nature, 
man cannot overthrow them, for they are Divine. For God is 
true and consistent ; he cannot put one doctrine in a book, and 
another in nature. And as books are mediate and nature im- 
mediate, one comes to me through the translation of languages 
and the agency of men ; the other one the same through all 
eternity, " without variableness or shadow of change," is the 
truly Divine, and the test of conscience, and human belief, and 
action. If astronomy, and geology, and physiology, sustain 
the Bible, it will stand ; if not, not. 

So far, then, astronomy and geology have been said by the 
most learned to sustain the Mosaic history, though at first seem- 
ingly variant ; whether Mahomet has gone to the mountain, or 
the mountain to Mahomet, they are together, and strengthened 
in the union. 

I say, then, that from all the lights which arebeftre me, there 



ADDRESS AT PHILADELrHIA. 53X 

are distinct species of the genus homo. I beheve the Caucasi- 
an, the Mogul, the Malay, the Indian, and Negro races are 
different species of the Genus Man, just as the terrier, the 
spaniel, the grey-hound, the pointer, are different species of the 
same canine genus. 

I am farther of the opinion that the Caucasian, or white, is 
the superior race ; of a larger and better formed brain ; of more 
beautiful form, and more exquisite structure. Modern discove- 
ries prove that the builders of the Pyramids, and Egyptian foun- 
ders of science and letters, were Whites. And this long disput- 
ed problem being settled. History now unites in making the 
Caucasian race, the first in civilization through all past time. 

As I said in the beginning of this lecture, the Mosaic history 
ie highly figurative, and general. 

In the begining God created the type of mankind, Adam, 
who represented his capabilities for good and evil, and his gene- 
ral destiny. But we are also bound to believe that distinct pairs 
were created by general or special Providence in difierent portions 
of the earth, suitable to its climate and pliysical differences. 

Such is a summary of my opinions upon the difference of 
races. As to the inferiority of races, I am also of the opinion 
that the Caucasian is the first ; whilst we know that myriad 
causes may depress one species, and elevate another, till they 
meet iqwn a common level. 

Whilst I grant, then, that " The inferiority of races " exists, 
I utterly deny, that it is a good basis of enslavement. We are 
all still men — children of the same Father— the God of all — 
subject to good and evil on earth, and the same destiny in a 
future life. If I can, on this plea, enslave the African, I can, 
upon the same ground, enslave the Mogul, the Malay, the Indi- 
an. Yes, if it be a sound basis of action, that because a man 
is inferior to another, he may be enslaved by another, then there 
is but one law on earth, and that is power. The very object 
of all government is to protect the weak, the " inferior ;" reason, 
the Divine law, and the undying instincts of the human soul ; 
all cry out against the infamy and crime of trampling upon the 
weak, the helpless, and the poor. Montesquieu, in speaking of 
prejudice and contempt, and " inferiority of races, as a reason 
of enslavement of our fellow-men," breaks out into the most 
exquisite, and scathing irony : '• It is hardly to be supposed that 
God, who is a wise being, should place a soul, especially a good 



532 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

soul, in such a black, ugly body." " It is impossible to suppose 
that these creatures are men, because, allowing them to be men, 
a suspicion would follow, that we ourselves are not Christians !" 

So the old Spaniards, when they had oppressed for centuries 
the Spaniards of the New World, denying them education, 
and legislation, and destroying their every means of eco- 
nomical progress, even pulling up their olive trees, that Spain 
might have a monopoly — in the Spanish Cortes, in the face of 
the world, had the frontless impudence and God-defying falsity, 
to say that the American Spaniards were not tnen ! And so 
say Hammond and McDuffie, and that school, after similar op- 
pressions of the Amencan Blacks ! But natural causes are 
operating, which, when leason, humanity, and religion fail, will 
yet purge us of this lie ! 

Conquest, difference of religion, the right of the father to 
sell the child, and the inferiority of different species of the ge- 
nus homo, are proven false grounds of slavery. 

5. The secondary basis : inheritance, gift, will, and purchase, 
being merely anodes of transfer of a thing, cannot be good. For 
where there is no right, it cannot be transferred ; in other 
words, the title conveyed is just as good as it was before con- 
veyance, and no more so.* And a title being bad all its modes 
of perpetuation are bad. For example : I might show in fact 
that M. Van Buren willed, gave, and sold, and that my father 
had a claim which I inherited, to Daniel Webster, and James 
K. Polk, and John C. Calhoun, and Henry Clay ; and it might 
be proven that I had paid ten thousand dollars to Mr. Van Bu- 
ren for these men ; and yet I could not hold them as slaves, be- 
cause neither my father, whose heir I was, nor Mr. Van Buren, 
whose assignee I was, had any title ; and of course none could 
accrue to me. 

All these grounds, then, upon which slavery is attempted to 
be held, crumble into dust before the force of reason and 
justice. 

6. Debt is good. Because I having used the property, the 
labor of another, and failing to pay the equivalent, it is just 
that my labor should be taken as the only remaining means of 



"* The doctrine of the Civil Code, or Roman Law, as well as of the Common 
Law, 18 " Nemo plus juris in alium transferre potest quam ipse habet," 



ADDRESS AT PHILADELPHIA, 533 

remuneration. But even this basis of slavery, such is the love 
of liberty among men, is now almost universally done away 
with among men. 

7. Crime, is a true basis of slavery. By the social compact 
a man may forfeit his life, by crime ; and as the greater in- 
cludes the less, he may of course forfeit his lahov. The go- 
vernment may use it in a penitentiary, or elsewhere, or sell the 
criminal to an individual. 

8. Voluntary consent is no doubt a basis of slavery. For, 
as a man may give away his property, so he may give away 
his labor, and become a slave. But as he may resume his 
liberty whenever it suits him, this state of being can hardly 
be ranked under the head of slavery. For the obligation to 
serve ceases with the will. Nor can it be urged that a man sold 
himself^ for, a sale to be valid, must be fair ; the seller must be 
shown to have received an equivalent ; but, as a slave cannot 
hold property, he cannot of course have received the price of 
his liberty, and the contract is void. Neither can it be urged 
that some immaterial equivalent may have been given and re- 
ceived. For we cannot imagine such a case. " What is a man 
profited if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own 
soul?" 

The ancients did, indeed, allow of this kind of voluntary en- 
slavement, yet such a slave was held in utter infamy, because 
they contended, that in selling himself, he endangered the lib- 
erties of others. They felt the evil, but gave a wrong reason ; 
its utter injustice and violation of natural law, and good rea- 
son, were the cause of its hardship, and made it, in truth, 
void. 

Having gone through all the grounds of slavery, and shown 
their utter falsity — for it is not contended by any one that 
slavery in the United States exists for crime, for debt, or by vo- 
luntary consent of the enslaved — the whole fabric by which 
three millions of men are held in absolute servitude in these 
States, crumbles into dust ! 

Nor do I stand sustained by reason and nature only, but I 
am fortified in my impregnable fortress by the greatest names 
and the most illustrious enunciations of men. 

All authors unite in the declaration, that government was 
formed for the better preservation of natural rights. And we 
declared as a nation, that the only authority arose, not from the 



534 THE WRITINGS OF CASSIUS M. CLAY. 

Divine right of kings, or priests, or hoary usage, but from "/Ae 
consent of the governed^ We cannot, therefore, claim to 
govern men for their own good, but only hij their voluntary 
consent. Far less can we, under the pretence of protecting a 
man, or any set of men in their natuial rights, utterly destroy 
them. 

What, then, are man's natural rights ? What the illustrious 
enunciations of God and man ? 

Paley : "Natural rights are a man's right to his life, limbs, 
and liberty." 

Blackstone : " For the principal aim of society is to protect 
individuals in the enjoyment of those absolute rights which 
were invested in them by the immortal laws of nature." 

Thomas Paine : " Man has no property in man ; neither has 
a generation any property in the generation which are to fol- 
low." Roger Sherman, and James Madison, and others, used 
the same language, " I deny that man can have property in 
man." 

Dymond : " It were humiliating to set about the proof that 
the slave system is incompatible with Christianity." " Christ- 
ianity condemns the system ; and no further inquiry about rec- 
titude remains." 

The French Convention, 1789 : I. " Men are born and 
always continue free and equal in respect to their rights. Civil 
distinctions, therefore, can only be founded on public utility." 

II. " The end of all political associations is the preservation 
of the natural rights of man ; and these rights are liberty, pro- 
perty, security, and resistance of oppression." 

III. " Political liberty consists in the power of doing what- 
ever does not injure another." 

But above these and all, is the Declaration of 1776: "All 
men are created equal — are endowed with certain inalienable 
rights ; among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap- 
piness." 

And still higher, is the New Testament : " Love thy neighbor 
as thyself ! " 

I have taken slavery in its simplest form — the taking of an- 
other's labor. I say nothing of its sequences — crime, poverty, 
woe, and death ! I have shown it opposed to the most illustrious 
enunciations, human and Divine— in violation of the common 



AEERESS AT PHILADELPHIA. 535 

law — the laws of nations and of reason — subversive of all our 
ideas of right — and repugnant to the conscience, and every 
aspiration of the immortal soul. Before God and man, I 
denounce " slavery as being in itself sinful.''' Yes, '• Slavery ; 
I denounce you Avherever thou art," whether in church or state, 
upheld by false religion, or unjust law — let it die ! 



LINES TO C. M. C. 



BY MKS. E. J. EAMES. 



Brave heart, and truly noble I that didst single 

From all Earth's lofty aims the loftiest one, 
Pursuing it by means which might not mingle 

"With Tiews less generous :— nobly hast thou done ! 
And dared and striven— through every obstacle :— 
And steadfastly resisting, through each ill, 

The Wrong and False. Sure, thou hast read and pondered 
With highest wisdom on those words divine— 

" Love one another ;" — therefore ne'er hath wandered 
The star that led thy spirit to the shrine 

Of holiest Truth ! Still may the Angels have 
Their charge o'er thee. Still (with the hope sublime 

To serve thy race) mayest thou all danger brave 
And win thy way, now, and through future time ! 



For Truth— Truth pure and indestructible— 
Is the strong ark wherein thy safety lies :— 
Even 'mid the slanders of fierce enemies 

Shalt thou be armed with hero-courage still 
T' oppose the Wrong— and pray God speed the Right 
Now steadily upon the wondrous light 

Of Freedom, in the Future, fix thy glance- 
Then, animated by the grandest dream — 

The noblest earthly hope — still to advance 
(With fearless will) the Cause that must redeem 

The promise written on the Nation's scroll— 

The pledge that in the Country of the Free 
Men shall have Equal Fvights ! Courage, O ardent soul ! 
Press onward— onward still 1 and thou shalt reach the goal ! 



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